It takes very little effort to find an article from Western state propaganda decrying Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas as authoritarian and rife with human rights abuses. This is the natural reaction the US has to any successful liberation movement. This fairly long report from Jason Cohen, a socialist who travelled to Nicaragua one week ago, should quell any suspicions.
He describes a country with high political consciousness among the masses, who are working to construct critical infrastructure for the country and their communities. There is a virtual education system that is free across the entire nation, which serves the dual goal of democratizing education and ensuring that those in rural areas or without much free time for university can still achieve degrees and a quality education; and these classes cover technical skills in the production of infrastructure and agriculture, but also political and ideological education in order to counter the fascist propaganda produced by imperialist nations abroad.
While Nicaragua is deeply invested in its nationality and national figures who led to their socialist revolution, such as Sandino, they are also immensely proud of their indigneous history, recognizing it as also part of their anti-colonial history which continues to the present day. Additionally, they honour the struggles of other nations on the continent, such as the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, as well as Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. Countries around the world are also celebrated and admired, such as Burkina Faso; during the Reagan administration, Nicaragua and Burkina Faso were comrades in arms, and now Traore is continuing the legacy of Sankara's anti-imperialism in the present. Perhaps most relevant today is their dedication towards Palestine, involving the creation of the Parque Palestina (shown in the post image), in which the Palestinian flag flies alongside the flag of Nicaragua. In July, Leila Khaled of the PFLP gave a speech in Nicaragua, in which the solidarity of the two nations was highlighted.
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 Nicaragua! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language. https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one. https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts. https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel. https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator. https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps. https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language. https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language. https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses. https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
I've seen it, the videos coming out of Gaza of the huge crater made by the US-made bomb dropped on a refugee camp by the zionist genocidal entity. This, coupled with the very recent video of a palestinian emergency worker carrying the lifeless body of a young girl amid the rubble, whose head is completely cracked open and is later seen being filled with pieces of cloth just to give it some proper form for a proper humane burial... It's over, it's completely over. If the continued stream of horrific information that comes out from Gaza doesn't turn you into a radical anti-Zionist and anti-Genocide person, you're dead to me and to everyone else. There is no more room for doubters, either you're against this genocide or you fully embrace it and celebrate it. Large portions of the western world fall into the latter. Let us not forget about the decadent comprador regimes and royals who plague the Arab World, those like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia... whose lack of response directly aids the genocidal effort of "Israel".
There is no more discussion to be had, it cannot get any clearer than this, it is impossible. "Israel" has done everything they can to show the world their genocidal intentions, they're very open and shameless about it. Whoever doubts, at this stage, is supportive of genocide.
the debate, especially the parting words, was a fantastic demonstration of the two ways that the American political class as well as citizenry is responding to its decaying empire:
denying it as hard as possible and demanding that people disbelieve their lying eyes; everything is fine and if it's not fine, it was because of Trump
admitting to it but flailing around trying to blame everybody but themselves; everything is bad but if we oppress powerless minorities hard enough, things will get better
Watching the debate just ended up reinforcing my belief that Kamala Harris has serious issues with her rhetoric on non white/POC men. Literally everytime she brought them up implicitly in the debate, she associated them with making and selling fentanyl and other drugs, brought up the fake Hamas sexual assault myths, and bragged about her job locking these people up and working on the border. Just despicable.
Went onto Reddit out of curiosity and saw a comment comparing Tim Walz to Henry Wallace. Somebody gave a good response on his flaws and a liberal responded with. “I’m not reading all that lil bro” and I logged out.
American libs seem to like using illiteracy as some kind of smug one-liner
The position liberals have is basically nazism. They want you to support the democrats despite the fact they're committed to performing genocide because they have the inherent belief that they are better than people in the rest of the world. They are asking you to support the lives of people in one place over the lives of the inferiors in the periphery.
It's nazi shit. How is this not nazi ideology? "We are better and you should support us because it's better for us, regardless of what happens elsewhere".
We're beyond Hitler particles here. It's just repackaged master race supremacist shit. Imperial core people are better than the periphery and therefore you shouldn't care about these people getting genocided.
What hurts most is that these liberals can see it too, but Marx and Engels were right, people do mainly only care about their own conditions and what materially affects them.
"My name is Matt Nelson and I'm about to engage in an extreme act of protest. We are all culpable in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.... We are slaves to capitalism and the military industrial complex. Most of us are too apathetic to care. The protest I'm about to engage in is a call to our government to stop suppling Israel with the money and weapons it uses to imprison and murder innocent Palestinians, to pressure Israel to end the genocide in Gaza, and to support the ICC indictment of Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli government.... A democracy is supposed to serve the will of the people, not the interests of the wealthy. Take the power back. Free Palestine."
@sexywheat@hexbear.net Here's why the Zionist entity has been doing polio vaccinations in Gaza:
Although polio has been eradicated in most developed nations, Israel has particular reason to be concerned about the disease. The country has at least 175,000 vulnerable children—the offspring of the ultra-Orthodox, or haredim, who are notorious for their opposition to vaccinations.
Because the haredim comprise 17 percent of Israel’s Jews and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs their support to remain in power, his government has exempted hundreds of thousands of haredim from Israel’s immunization program against polio as well as measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis and HPV, influenza, and COVID-19—despite the threat to domestic and global health from these vaccine-preventable diseases.
WaPo must be utterly perplexed that a high-ranking official fucks up and instead of receiving no negative consequences and then being promoted to Chief Organ Harvester at the IMF, the guy is actually removed from his position and access to power.
Qin Gang got involved in, and proceeded to try and hide, an extramarital affair with a reporter, which is a potential liability for state security. I've seen rumors in articles that the reporter had Western intelligence connections but nothing I can substantiate.
Apparently the NYPD shot a man to death after tasering him multiple times for jumping a turnstile today. One pig ended up in the hospital from friendly fire and they also shot at least two bystanders. Death to America.
On this day 23 years ago, New York City was rocked by two explosions some eyewitnesses alleged to be passenger planes mysteriously colliding with the World Trade Center.
Nearly 3 thousand people died according to figures by the former Bush-run Department of Health.
When pressed for comment, a spokesperson for Al-Qaeda said they were conducting an internal investigation to determine the circumstances behind the event. The spokesperson added that the collision may have been caused by a technical malfunction.
Final conclusions are pending.
Fact: The average cruising altitude of a passenger airplane is roughly 35,000 feet. The World Trade Center measured only 1,368 feet.
Aviation experts question the accuracy of accounts by purported eyewitnesses.
So, I just saw on twitter that the elections for São Paulo (Brazil's largest city) had a debate, and a neoliberal candidate just used a chair to hit a neonazi (bolsonarista) candidate in the head live on Brazilian TV lol. I think the Bolsonaro candidate called him a rapist and mocked the fact that his mother-in-law died.
During the São Paulo mayoral debate, candidate Datena attacked Pablo Marçal with a chair after Marçal called him a "coward" for not being man enough to slap him in the face.
Joe Biden wears a cap in support of Donald Trump during an event; the White House says the president wore the cap as a gesture of unity between the parties in defense of the country. Donald Trump's campaign shared the photo and thanked the Democrat for his “support”.
Israeli media reported that the occupation's army was surprised this morning by the Yemeni missile and that the occupation's air forces did not see, know, or hear anything.
Israeli media also said that the new head of the Aman Unit was asleep when the missile fell, blasting the occupation's army spokesperson as no longer trustworthy, adding that he does not convince anyone.
Earlier today, a Yemeni ballistic missile triggered sirens across central occupied Palestine. A statement by the Yemeni Armed Forces is expected, in which the spokesperson will clarify the details behind the operation.
My son is already two months old, time just passes so quickly. This mf is growing fast on that breast milk diet. He's balding though, guess I'll take him to Turkey soon. On a different note, I'm going to need an archive of communist cartoons soon to start the training early.
Asian Qualifiers for the Great Satan World Cup in 2026 has started, with a great start for Iraq and surprisingly Palestine who drew with South Korea in Seoul. Iraq should make it in this group, while Palestine could possibly be in a decent position if they beat Jordan tomorrow. Iran won their first match, they'll make it for sure. North Korea sadly lost to Uzbekistan (we should a Central Asian COTW period btw), their chances look below average.
Ugledar is about to be encircled, very big news for us Ugledar haters. Very stupid town, but a marvel of Soviet engineering. Ukraine have mainly stopped the bleeding near Pokrovsk, but they're quickly losing ground in the Kurakhove sector and near Kupiansk. Important weeks incoming now before mud season.
Damn when will Iran stop edging, we need them to goon soon
My wife's sister is getting married in Iraq next month, very annoying timing because we can't travel yet with the lil kid. In her defence, the wedding was supposed to be like 7 months ago, but the groom's uncle suddenly died like a month before the wedding.
What is Israel even doing right now? They've been in Gaza for like 11 months now with barely anything tangible achieved, their internal situation is kinda complicated, Iran keeps edging them, the US fired like 50 missiles into Yemen and was like "bro I'm all out of ideas", peace negotiations keep getting wrecked by Satanyahu. What's the long-term goal here, I'm not sure that there's one.
Harris is positioning herself as a Reaganite warlord in a chilling ad that makes clear as day that the Cold War—which proved unbearably hot for the tens of millions of lives the US destroyed in the Third World—was and will continue to be the consensus project of US imperialism.
LMAO - "[Reagan] 'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall,'
[JFK] 'And when one man is enslaved, all are not free,'
American presidents, Republican and Democrat, have always defied Russia's communist dictators, and defended American ideals.
Kamala Harris gets this. [Kamala] 'If we stand by, while an aggressor invades its neighbour with impunity, they will keep going,'
Kamala Harris will stand up to Putin, protect our allies, and keep us safe."
Looks like $300 million annually will be given to the state department for anti-China propaganda. This probably means more working with NGO’s to create China bad narratives, especially with BRI.
I can already tell which countries are more likely to fall for it than others.
The controls within what is normally a wide area of free movement - the European Schengen zone - will start on Sept. 16 and initially last for six months, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Monday.
The government has also designed a scheme enabling authorities to reject more migrants directly at German borders, Faeser said, without adding details on the controversial and legally fraught move.
The restrictions are part of a series of measures Germany has taken to toughen its stance on irregular migration in recent years following a surge in arrivals, in particular people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East.
The survey by the Council on American Islamic Relations finds 40% of Muslim-American voters in Michigan say they support Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.
Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump (18%) and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (12%) trail far behind in the poll.
“Jill Stein is polling very strong from previous Democratic voters…independent voters,” said Robert McCaw, CAIR’s director of Government Affairs, “And we also see that she’s pulled away from some traditionally voting Republican.”
According to the poll, Michigan is something of an outlier.
I was watching some European news channel in English about 30 minutes ago: The talking head guest is defending Israel and bemoaning Putler. The interviewer starts asking good questions. She’s pro-Kiev but points out the hypocrisy. She pointedly asks if the sanctions are working against Russia, and he hedges, well, yes. And she says then why not sanction Israel. And he says, we cannot apply logic here, it’s about principles.
That german bridge that collapsed? It collapsed again, US wishes it could collapse bridges this well the world is witnessing superior german engineering and efficiency.
All the talk about TIFF cancelling the documentary about Russian soldiers is breaking my brain. It's not enough that the documentary is already pro Ukraine by showing the Russian soldiers become disillusioned with the war, anything that shows Russians as human beings cannot be allowed in Western media. Knowing they would gladly show a documentary humanizing Nazis but Russians are a bridge too far
A Sputnik correspondent reported that Russian soldiers have discovered a map of the US military base at Fort Irwin, which the US military forgot in one of its Bradley fighting vehicles that it transferred to #Ukraine and was later captured in the Kupyansk area.
Fort Irwin is one of the largest military training centers in the United States located in the Mojave desert in California, where soldiers train to operate armored vehicles as part of brigades.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the United States has supplied Kiev with more than 300 Bradley vehicles.
The Trump shooter was an unofficial recruiter for the Ukrainian foreign legion lmao
“Most of the Ukrainian authorities do not want these soldiers,” said Ryan Routh, head of the International Volunteer Center in Ukraine, a private organization which helps foreigners seeking to assist the war effort connect with military units and aid groups. “I have had partners meeting with [Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense] every week and still have not been able to get them to agree to issue one single visa.”
Two Fulton County judges disqualified independent candidates Cornel West and Claudia De la Cruz from Georgia’s presidential ballot Wednesday, rulings that narrow voters’ choices one month before early voting begins.
But it already may be too late to remove their names from ballots. Notices would be posted in polling places warning voters that West and De la Cruz have been disqualified and that votes for them wouldn’t be counted.
Full text, since the Archive is taking forever
Two Fulton County judges disqualified independent candidates Cornel West and Claudia De la Cruz from Georgia’s presidential ballot Wednesday, rulings that narrow voters’ choices one month before early voting begins.
But it already may be too late to remove their names from ballots. Notices would be posted in polling places warning voters that West and De la Cruz have been disqualified and that votes for them wouldn’t be counted.
More than 110 of Georgia’s 159 counties already have printed ballots with the minor candidates’ names.
“It would be extremely difficult to reprint ballot(s) and remove Dr. West as an option before the election,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox Jr. wrote in his decision. “This court finds that there is insufficient time to strike the candidate’s name or reprint the ballots.”
Meanwhile, a separate ruling by Cox kept Green Party candidate Jill Stein as a qualified candidate under a new state law that allows third-party candidates if they’re also on the ballot in at least 20 other states.
The bottom line for Georgia voters is there now are four candidates remaining in the race: Democrat Kamala Harris, Libertarian Chase Oliver, Stein and Republican Donald Trump.
The judges reversed decisions by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who had sought to include West and De la Cruz among presidential candidates. Raffensperger had added them to the ballot last month, overruling a recommendation of an administrative law judge.
“Partisan activists are attempting to tilt the scales of this election, and I believe that is wrong,” Raffensperger said Thursday. “The law is clear, and these qualified candidates have a right to be on Georgia’s ballot, and I will fight for voters’ rights every day to choose the candidate for whom they want to elect.”
Raffensperger is a Republican, and his attempt to add liberal presidential candidates such as West and De la Cruz would give voters an option to pick them instead of Harris.
The two judges found both independent candidates failed to follow state laws to appear on the ballot.
Independent candidates must gather more than 7,500 signatures to qualify — both candidates did so — but state law requires those signatures to be submitted in the name of at least one of their 16 potential Georgia electors to the Electoral College. None of their presidential electors met that requirement, the judges ruled.
But that does not mean the legal battle is over, as both cases could be appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia. Court disputes over independent candidates potentially could continue all the way until Election Day.
“We believe this ruling defies logic and expect it will be overturned on appeal,” said Edwin DeJesus, who is with the West campaign. “The conclusion reached is frankly ludicrous. The campaign remains optimistic about the end result we will achieve.”
Estevan Hernandez, co-chair of De la Cruz’s campaign in Georgia, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday that the campaign plans to appeal. “This is the result of an effort by the Democratic Party to sabotage democratic rights of Georgia voters at the very moment that they say that the 2024 election is about democracy itself,” Hernandez said in a statement. “This is an example of extreme hypocrisy by the Democratic Party establishment.”
The Democratic Party of Georgia didn’t immediately comment Thursday.
The Democrat-backed legal challenges are part of a national strategy to block independent and third-party candidates from potentially siphoning votes away from Harris, which could make the difference in a close race between Harris and Trump.
Last month, Raffensperger overruled a Georgia administrative law judge and sought a presidential ballot with six names: Harris, Trump, Oliver, West, Stein and De la Cruz, the candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation who sought to qualify in Georgia as an independent.
Georgia voters will not see independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the ballot after he withdrew from the race and endorsed Trump.
Joe Biden beat Trump by fewer than 12,000 votes in Georgia’s 2020 general election. In what’s expected to be another close race between Harris and Trump, every vote could matter.
Looks like it's 9-11 and it makes me wonder how much better would the world be if America fucked off. Imagine every right wing dip shit in almost every country in the world not having the backing of the world most powerful country.
The shooter, Scott Hayes of Framingham, has been harassing and trying to intimidate nonviolent anti-genocide protesters for nearly a year. A look at his social media:
[Photo of one of his tweets and him posting a picture of a gun]
The shooter is also an Iraq War veteran. For all those braindead leftoids who think there's anything worth engaging in the fascist US military. "Bro 1917!!" There is no 1917. This is the Wehrmacht at 1941 in Babyn Yar. Complete fucking scum who should be viewed as the enemy.
Two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center? Wow. I didn't know that, you're telling me for the first time. They led an amazing life. What else can you say? They were amazing buildings which led an amazing life. I'm actually sad to hear that. Thank you very much.
🔴 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:
—
The Harris-Trump debate is a race to support the zionist genocide and both parties are panting over which of them is more loyal to the zionist entity.
full text
The last debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump comes to confirm once again that there is no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties regarding the Arab-zionist conflict and supporting the occupation and the genocide war against our Palestinian people. The two parties rushed to defend the "right of the zionist entity to defend itself", and competed to show which of them is more loyal to this entity.
While Harris, the Democratic Party candidate, outlined her vision of the conflict by adopting the misleading zionist narrative about the events of October 7, she continued to talk about her party leading the war on Gaza directly, and establishing a bridge to transfer weapons that contribute to the extermination of our people and the destruction of the Strip, and she also gave a blank check to continue supporting the occupation without conditions.
In contrast, the Republican Party candidate Trump expressed himself as the "permanent protector and savior" or "the awaited Messiah" of the zionist entity, stressing his readiness to provide all possible support.
These expected positions expressed by the two candidates in their full support for the zionist entity require the free voices inside America that support the cause of our people or reject the influence of the zionist lobby to use the ballot box as a means of pressuring the two parties to stop American sponsorship of the ongoing war of extermination in Gaza, and to struggle to bring about a radical change in American policy towards the zionist entity, despite the difficulty of that, at least in the near future.
What came in the debate between the candidates of the two American parties confirms that America remains America; the head of evil in the world and the sponsor of zionist terrorism, and there will be no change in the positions of the two parties unless the American public realizes that it is paying the price for the two parties' gambling with their future and privileges, and their squandering of tax money in favor of the zionist entity and their surrender to the will of the zionist lobby.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Media Department
September 11, 2024
Lula da Silva calls those who advocate privatization “imbeciles”.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called those who defend the privatization of Petrobras (Brazil's Oil Company) “a bunch of imbeciles” and said that the Car Wash operation, which revealed a huge corruption scheme at the state-owned company, was not aimed at arresting corrupt people, but at demoralizing the oil company in order to sell it.
In a speech during the inauguration ceremony of the Boaventura Energy Complex, in Itaboraí, in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, Lula also said that Petrobras is not just for generating profit, but also for providing services to society.
China is beating America in the nuclear-energy race
They have pioneered a new generation of reactor
China connected its first civilian reactor to the grid in 1991, some three decades after America had done the same. Now, though, China is ten to 15 years ahead of America in deploying fourth-generation nuclear technology, according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a think-tank in Washington. China is also building conventional reactors far more quickly. Of the 60 or so plants under construction globally, 45% are in China.
Honestly I think a country, preferably a "neutral country" not currently at war or arming a side in the current major global conflicts in Ukraine-Russia and Palestine-Israel, should conduct a large scale nuclear test. It seems that people have forgotten how destructive these weapons are, or what a nuclear strike would mean. The world, and its leaders, especially the western leaders, need a reminder.
These western leaders keep pushing for long range strikes against Russia and have struck their early warning radars once (who have over 1500 currently armed nuclear weapons) and keep giving endless support to an openly genocidal Israeli state (research the Samson option). These people are playing with fire, and they need to be reminded that fire burns.
The Electronic Intifada just received a 7 day ban for violating YouTube’s “community guidelines”. They were not able to do their weekly livestream today.
I"m glad I put myself in a booze / food coma before the debates. Sounds like it went exactly as expected with the two trying to out each other.
....and I wake up to 3 more money demands from blue MAGA. More numbers to block...after I harass them at an inconvenient hour of the night of course, or convenient hour in Moscow.
President Putin also made an important statement today in response to all the NATO chatter about ‘long-range weapons for Kiev’:
“I have already mentioned this, and any experts will confirm, both in our country and in the West, that the Ukrainian army is not capable of [independently] carrying out strikes using Western modern, long-range precision systems. It cannot do this. This is possible only with the use of intelligence from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This data is only available from satellites of the European Union or the United States, in other words, from NATO satellites. That's the first point.
The second and very important, perhaps key point is that only NATO servicemen can make flight assignments to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this.
So this is not about whether or not to allow the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia using these weapons, but about deciding whether or not NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not. If such a decision is taken, it will mean nothing short of direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, European countries, in the war in Ukraine. This would constitute their direct participation, and this, of course, changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict. It will mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries, are at war with Russia. And if this is so, bearing in mind the change in the very nature of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be posed to us.”
Ukraine's fatal F-16 crash should scare Russia and China
First, with F-16s, Ukraine’s air force is becoming more aggressive and capable. Mes praised the F-16’s sophisticated avionics in an interview last November. "[The] F-16 is very maneuverable. It encourages you to pilot in an aggressive style,"
more than 68,000 public employees in Florida have lost their union representation - NOT because they voted to get rid of their unions, but because their union had low membership and didn't petition for a recertification election.
From here CW: some lesser evilism. But also some good lines:
There is a song… what’s it called? “Which Side Are You On.” Yeah. Look it up. It is not called “Watch Us Build a Coalition With Moderate Elements of the Coal Industry Who Are More Reasonable Than Sheriff J.H. Blair.”
The challenge for the European Union is “existential,” Mario Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank, said on Monday in Brussels. If Europe cannot effectively compete and, in turn, provide its people with security and prosperity, he said, “it will have lost its reason for being.”
I like how Democrats have screeched for a decade about "stochastic terrorism", but you won't hear one peep about the links between them claiming he's the next Hitler and now a second attempt in a few months to dome his ass (no sympathy for Trump of course lol).
They are really trying to try and divide the vote with Stein by pointing out she is Pro Assad. While I know a sizable chunk of the Arab diaspora here doesn't like Assad (at least in my experience), I don't think it will work because its purely a protest vote against the genocide in Gaza.
U.S. regulators claim they are not legally required to regulate toxic PFAS chemicals in sewage sludge spread on farmland across the country, according to a court filing the government made this week in response to a lawsuit from an environmental watchdog group.
Dresden's Carolabrücke Collapse: A Stark Reminder of Government Neglect Under Scholz's Regime
Dresden has been plunged into turmoil as the Carolabrücke, the city’s most vital bridge connecting its northern and southern halves, collapsed during the night. This shocking event has not only severed a critical transport link but has also laid bare the weaknesses in Germany’s infrastructure management under the current regime led by the authoritarian leader Olaf "Nr 2" Scholz.
The Carolabrücke was more than just a bridge; it was a key symbol of Dresden’s unity and economic vitality. Its sudden collapse is seen by many germany watchers as emblematic of broader issues plaguing Germany's economy and leadership, widespread recession, corruption and instability. The Scholz regime, already facing criticism for its handling of various international issues, now finds itself under intensified scrutiny as citizens question how such a crucial structure could be allowed to deteriorate to the point of failure.
As the nation looks on, Chancellor Scholz and his government are facing mounting pressure to not only provide answers but also to take swift and decisive action. From the Bundestag only one thing can be heard "Es wird sich grundsätzlich nichts ändern" (Nothing will fundementally change). Several NGOs one of them Germany Watch lead by renowned Dr. 艾德里安 曾兹 has issued warnings that a human catastrophe is imminent if the world community does not act now.
Reporting from an underground bunker in srfland I'm Notceps back to the studio.
So apparently chuds stormed the Mexican senate, the question is whether the new president acts like Biden and wastes an opportunity or acts like Lula and uses this as an excuse to purge some federal agencies.
"Now we provide military stuff to a war - then we could have provided military stuff to prevent the war," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told German weekly newspaper FAS.
oh, you just mean you think NATO should have sent more weapons, earlier to ukraine
this isn't really news, but still a good object lesson in why you can't rely on just the headline
How detached is the UN at its headquarters or its offices in the Global North from its agencies in the field like UNRWA? I find it unbelievable that Israel keeps killing UN staff in these bombings on Palestinians and somehow UN staff aren't revolting. I know the UN is exactly as toothed as its veto countries want it to be, but if my coworkers kept getting killed by my boss I don't think I'd be sitting on my hands
The way western media are covering US relations to the illegal zionist entity is insane. Here are some examples of headlines from Danish government broadcaster DR:
September 10th: America demands changes after "Israel"'s army admits they probably killed activist
August 16th: Biden: We will meet next week with the purpose of making an agreement on a ceasefire in Gaza
August 15th: The White House confirms negotiations in Qatar: 'A promising start'
August 2nd: Biden: The killing of Hamas leader doesn't exactly help the ceasefire negotiations in Gaza
July 26th: Harris after meeting Netanyahu: 'What it's happening in Gaza is heartbreaking'
Western propaganda is making the US sound like a well-meaning humanitarian institution doing their gosh-darned best to stop the violence but those exotic middle easterners are just too unruly. The direct culpability of the US is only reported as something fringe activists are saying, if it is reported at all.
If your only knowledge about the genocide, occupation and apartheid in Palestine comes from sources like this, you are being profoundly disinformed about the situation. Not knowing anything at all would makes you less ignorant than what you get from reporting like this.
The Trump campaign has laid out a peace plan for the war in Ukraine that would have Ukraine surrender the land Russia has taken (the thing that's going to happen eventually anyway).
Does that make Trump the harm reduction candidate?
Redditors really show their age when they spout conspiratorial shit about TikTok while whining about zoomers. Is that entire site populated by Gen X/ millennials and contrarian zoomers?
A pretty deranged account that would post his own phone number lol.
EDIT: the hasanabi coverage on this is guy is insane. Turned on Trumped in 2106, became Bernie bro, barricaded himself inside his house, probably is schizo going off his twitter, wants to join ukraine, tweeted at Kim Jong Un to try to invite him to his party. Wow. The internet.
There's nothing wrong with good faith criticism of your friend...Israel is an ally. They're our friend in the Middle East. We support their right to exist. All of that stuff right. And we need to end the occupation and settlement expansion, hold them accountable, stop detaining children, and right now stop the genocide and the killing of babies and innocent people. We can say those things. We can say if you continue we will not send you any more arms....
My good friend Benjamin Netanyahu right here. He was supposed to be an anti-Zionist all of a sudden, eh? DSA should've kicked him out after all. They were so desperate to hear this donkey-brained Kkkopmala sycophant say the word "genocide" that they let another fucking "progressive" who is another Pelosi/AOC in the making run around with their socialist flag. Pathetic.
He started with the basic long live the heroes of the independence, then added the part about the working people, migrants and indigenous people, i like that he also added death to corruption and racism which was new and then ended it with long live the 4th transformation (the name of his movement)
"Sheriff says the man who pointed a rifle through a fence at Trump's golf course had a scope, backpacks and a GoPro camera and was 400-500 yards from Trump."
Bunch of whining about how his security detail isn't big enough to secure an entire golf course.
"Trump’s golf course is surrounded by shrubbery. If somebody gets into the shrubbery, they’re pretty much out of sight, Bradhsaw says." - guy outsmarted by a bush
"No injuries were reported: Trump’s campaign and the Secret Service said Trump was safe, and the agency said it was investigating the incident that occurred shortly before 2 p.m."
I am indeed happy to hear Fujimori died. But at the same time, I can't stop thinking he died at like 86 after fulfilling all his goals, the damage he has done is far too great and he escaped proper justice (Execution, because monsters like him don't deserve to live). Same goes for other ghouls like Bush (father), Rumsfeld, Kissinger and the fucking Queen. They all died, yes, and we should celebrate. But they died comfortably after doing their jobs. They might be gone, but the structures that took them to power and allowed them to do what they did are still around, they have not been dismantled. Hitler died, but nazism lived on.
Once we do just that, only then we can say proper justice has been delivered.
Still , but we must also remind ourselves that we have a lot of work to do.
Support for the Norwegian monarchy has been plummeting recently, as highlighted by a new poll commissioned by Norwegian government broadcaster NRK.
According to the poll, only 62% of Norwegians still back the monarchy, a sharp drop from 73% in May this year. For context, in 2017, support sat at a solid 81%. The royal family's public image is taking a serious hit, largely due to the actions of two high-profile members: Marius Borg Høiby, the stepson of the future king, who has been charged with abusing a woman, and Princess Märtha-Louise, whose tacky spirituality grifts and highly commercialised wedding to a fellow non-white spirituality grifter have further damaged the monarchy's already fragile reputation.
Read more...
The Fuckboy Step-Prince
Marius Borg Høiby, 27, was arrested last month and charged with assault, vandalism, theft, and stalking after a coke-and-booze-fueled meltdown in the apartment of a woman he claims was his girlfriend. Her lawyer, however, denies that she was ever involved with him romantically. Following the arrest, a restraining order was issued against Høiby, prohibiting him from contacting her.
Ten days after his arrest, Høiby issued a public apology to the woman, claiming to have several mental health issues and promising to seek treatment for both his substance abuse and his supposed psychological problems. Unfortunately for him, two of his ex-partners have since come forward, telling of his drug use and violent behavior, which blows apart his narrative that this was just a one-time mistake.
To make matters worse for the royals, Crown Princess Mette-Marit (Høiby’s mother) reportedly called the victim to "discuss" the charges shortly after the arrest, prompting outrage over the royals potentially abusing their status to influence the legal process.
Though Høiby holds no royal title or official function, this isn’t his first scandal. Apart from a conviction for drug possession the step-prince has previously made headlines for referring to himself as "Prince of Norway" in a short-lived stint as a style editor for a British fashion magazine, and he's used the royal palace's address both to give to police when arrested for drug possession and as a marketing ploy to sell second-hand luxury goods online. When he’s not busy assaulting women, Høiby fills his time doing cocaine, posting videos of reckless driving and partying with celebrities, influencers, organized criminals and alt-right bloggers.
On top of it all, he’s faced criticism for using his connections to get a Norwegian diplomatic passport — despite having no diplomatic role — using it to dodge law enforcement while abroad.
Royal Grifters: The Angel Princess and the COVID Shaman
While Høiby self-destructs, Princess Märtha-Louise — daughter of King Harald — is also doing her bit to fan the flames of republican sentiment, with 69% of poll respondents saying she should lose her royal title.
Märtha-Louise recently married her long-time partner, Durek Verrett, a self-styled American "shaman" who caters to the spiritual needs of the rich and famous. By his own account Verrett had spiritual precognition of 9/11 but he decided not to warn anyone. Normally, royal weddings serve as an opportunity for monarchies to flex their influence and charm the public with elaborate pageantry, but not this time. For a start just by being black Verrett has pissed off Norway's nastiest elements, who would otherwise have been staunch monarchists.
But Verrett’s race isn’t the only controversy. The couple’s blatant commercialism has turned off much of the public who sees it as unworthy for the institution. In a break from tradition, they sold exclusive coverage of the wedding to a British tabloid, shunning Norway’s government broadcaster, NRK. While the king and royal family attended, they notably skipped the tabloid photoshoot.
Adding to the circus, Märtha-Louise promoted her clothing line at the wedding by setting up a stand for guests to purchase her merchandise. Leading up to the wedding, the labels of a bespoke brand of gin marketed by the couple was found to violate Norwegian alcohol advertising laws and had to be relabeled before the state alcohol monopoly would sell it.
NRK reports that King Harald is displeased, seeing the commercial nature of the wedding as a breach of his agreement with Märtha-Louise not to use her title for financial gain.
Not content to stop there, Märtha-Louise and her shaman husband are also working on a Netflix series, much to the annoyance of residents in the small village where it’s being filmed. Their prior ventures include Verrett selling "magic charms" to protect against COVID, and Märtha-Louise running a school offering courses on how to perform miracles and communicate with angels to people with more money than sense.
The monarchy recently removed the "Royal Family" section from its official website. The section had previously included biographies for both Märtha-Louise and Marius Borg Høiby. Instead, a new category titled "Other Royals" has appeared, with Høiby no longer receiving his own profile.
I dipped a toe in the lib blogosphere recently just to see how the election coverage was looking from their perspective, and it's amazing how orthogonal their news is to ours. Daily Kos has regular feature called "Russian Stuff Blowing Up" and tons of Ukraine war coverage but is essentially silent on Palestine. There's a single recent, highly detailed diary that goes into Israel's role in the October 7th casualties and is highly critical of America and Israel, and it has less than a tenth of the engagement as "Russian Stuff Blowing Up," where they're busy cheering on the possibility of a Ukrainian strike on Iran. The rest of the front page diaries are about Trump or the election (front page right now: Trump, DeSantis, Trump, Trump, political cartoon about Trump).
I've spent about 8 years at this point drifting more and more leftwards after watching the fallout from the election and results (or lack thereof) of the marches and protests that happened immediately afterward, and it's a little disorienting to see people I would've mostly agreed with inhabiting an alien world and speaking a totally different language. The comments sections suggest that there's several people there who might be reachable but it seems like the majority is pretty much what you'd expect from an r/politics thread.
Wow looks like NATO is finally considering talking to Russia regarding ending the war after realising that their sanctions, military equipment and political standing have all failed over the last two years.
According to Sputnik, thousands of elite Houthi fighters who were training for months to storm "israeli" bases are now in Syria so the playing field can be a bit more leveled soon.
In two studies, experts reveal enormous deficits in the Bundeswehr's procurement and armaments system. There is a lack of money and speed, some scientists even speak of “state failure”.
“This offers no incentives for the arms industry because it is unclear how much money Germany wants to and can spend on defense after the 100 billion special fund expires,” said lead author and economist Guntram B. Wolff in a telephone conversation with the SZ. This is because defense companies that are thinking about building an additional factory have an investment horizon of ten years.
Give us more money!
Best part:
“At the current rate of procurement, it would take Germany up to almost 100 years to reach the military inventory of 20 years ago.” [...]
According to the scientists, Russia, on the other hand, would be able to provide the same quantities in a much shorter time. Moscow would need around half a year to produce the Bundeswehr's entire stock.
full article in German because archive.is no longer gets around SZ paywall
Brisante Studien zur Bundeswehr: Von wegen Zeitenwende
September 2024, 18:01 Uhr
In zwei Studien zeigen Experten enorme Defizite im Beschaffungs- und Rüstungswesen der Bundeswehr auf. Es mangele an Geld und Tempo, manche Wissenschaftler sprechen gar von „Staatsversagen“.
Von Sina-Maria Schweikle, Berlin
Am Dienstag beginnen die Haushaltsberatungen im Deutschen Bundestag. Dabei spielt der Verteidigungsetat eine zentrale Rolle. Seit dem 24. Februar 2022, dem Beginn des russischen Angriffs auf die Ukraine, herrscht Krieg in Europa. Drei Tage später postulierte Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz in seiner Regierungserklärung, die Aggression markiere eine „Zeitenwende in der Geschichte unseres Kontinents“. Es werde getan, was notwendig sei, um den Frieden in Europa zu sichern. Deutschland müsse deutlich mehr in die Sicherheit des Landes investieren, um Freiheit und Demokratie zu schützen. „Das Ziel ist eine leistungsfähige, hochmoderne, fortschrittliche Bundeswehr, die uns zuverlässig schützt“, sagte Scholz damals.
Zweieinhalb Jahre später scheint dieses Ziel in weite Ferne gerückt zu sein. Nach einer Bestandsaufnahme bilanzieren Verteidigungs- und Sicherheitsexperten in einer am Montag veröffentlichten Studie der SPD-nahen Denkfabrik Dezernat Zukunft: „Staatsversagen“. Daran dürften auch die geplanten 53 Milliarden Euro im Verteidigungsetat nichts ändern.
Die Ampelspitzen hatten sich im Juli darauf geeinigt, dass die Bundeswehr im kommenden Jahr deutlich weniger zusätzliches Geld bekommt als von Verteidigungsminister Boris Pistorius (SPD) gefordert. Ab 2025 soll der Wehretat von derzeit 52 Milliarden Euro nur leicht um rund 1,2 Milliarden Euro steigen. Ab 2028, wenn das 100-Milliarden-Sondervermögen aufgebraucht ist, soll der reguläre Wehretat dann aber 80 Milliarden Euro betragen, um die Nato-Vorgaben zu erfüllen.
„Mit dem Verteidigungsetat wird auch eine Lücke beschlossen.“
Sicherheitsexperten wie Christan Mölling von der Bertelsmann-Stiftung sehen diese Zahlen skeptisch. Er hat mit sieben weiteren Kolleginnen und Kollegen das Kapitel „Verteidigung“ in der Studie des Dezernats Zukunft verfasst und sagt im Gespräch mit der Süddeutschen Zeitung: „Mit dem Verteidigungsetat wird auch eine Lücke beschlossen: Wir wissen heute schon, dass für 2025 mehr als 53 Milliarden nötig wären. Bis 2030 fehlen rund 103 Milliarden Euro“, so Mölling.
Für ihre Studie haben die Expertinnen und Experten mit Politikern und Fachleuten gesprochen sowie öffentlich zugängliche Daten ausgewertet. Der deutsche Staat habe den Verfassungsauftrag, Streitkräfte zur Verteidigung zu befähigen, in den vergangenen Jahren nicht erfüllt, erfülle ihn heute nicht und könne ihn auch auf absehbare Zeit nicht erfüllen, heißt es in dem Bericht.
Für die militärische Verteidigungsfähigkeit müssten demnach in Deutschland kurz-, aber auch mittelfristig zusätzliche Finanzmittel aufgebracht werden. Ob die geplanten 80 Milliarden Euro ab 2028 für eine entsprechende Kehrtwende nicht ausreichen? Christian Mölling hat eher grundsätzliche Zweifel: „Ob es wirklich einen sprunghaften Anstieg um 30 Milliarden Euro im Jahr 2028 geben wird, steht in den Sternen.“
Den Rüstungsunternehmen fehlt das Vertrauen in die Haushaltsplanung
Eine Frage, die sich auch seine Kollegen vom Kieler Institut für Weltwirtschaft stellen. Dort haben Experten eine Studie mit dem Titel „Kriegstüchtig in Jahrzehnten: Europas und Deutschlands langsame Aufrüstung gegenüber Russland“ veröffentlicht. Wie Mölling und seine Kollegen haben auch die Kieler Wissenschaftler auf öffentlich zugängliche Daten zurückgegriffen. Und auch sie kritisieren die deutsche Haushaltsplanung. „Diese bietet keine Anreize für die Rüstungsindustrie, weil unklar ist, wie viel Geld Deutschland nach dem Auslaufen des 100-Milliarden-Sondervermögens für Verteidigung ausgeben will und kann“, sagte der Hauptautor und Ökonom Guntram B. Wolff in einem Telefonat mit der SZ. Denn Rüstungsunternehmen, die über den Bau einer zusätzlichen Fabrik nachdenken, hätten einen Investitionshorizont von zehn Jahren.
Mit Sorge blicken er und seine Kollegen auf das Beschaffungswesen der Bundeswehr: „Um den militärischen Bestand von vor 20 Jahren zu erreichen, bräuchte Deutschland beim derzeitigen Beschaffungstempo bis zu knapp 100 Jahre.“ Die Bestände des Jahres 2004 könnten beispielsweise beim derzeitigen Beschaffungstempo bei Kampfflugzeugen in rund 15 Jahren, bei Kampfpanzern in rund 40 Jahren und bei Artillerie-Haubitzen erst in fast 100 Jahren wieder erreicht werden.
Russland hingegen, so die Wissenschaftler, wäre in der Lage, die gleichen Mengen in sehr viel kürzerer Zeit bereitzustellen. Um den Gesamtbestand der Bundeswehr zu produzieren, bräuchte Moskau etwa ein halbes Jahr. Seit dem Angriff auf die Ukraine habe Putin seine Produktionskapazitäten bei Panzern verdreifacht und bei der weitreichenden Flugabwehr verdoppelt. Deutschland hingegen habe erst ein Jahr nach Beginn des russischen Angriffskrieges begonnen, seine Verteidigungsausgaben zu erhöhen, kritisieren die Autoren. Ein „Weiter so“ wäre angesichts der russischen Aggression fahrlässig und unverantwortlich.
We've speculated a fair amount about the very measured approach of Iran to Israel - this negotiated pullout of iraq may be something that Iran is working on that they don't want to jeopardize through escalation. Getting the US out of Iraq would be positive for them for sure, especially if some form of sanctions relief was agreed on as well
I posted the following in the waning hours of last week's thread:
Mkb speculates that sanctions relief is a top priority for their government based on recent statements by khamenei
The salience is that the Axis of Resistance is not topping Iran’s foreign-policy priorities. That vector plausibly continues in the matrix but somewhere lower down, for sure. Make no mistake, what we are hearing from Tehran is about direct negotiations with the US as the number one priority as the means to get relief from western sanctions, which is an imperative for accelerating the economy and is the lodestar for Iran’s national policy. Iran’s neighbours are keenly watching. To be sure, the Middle East is on the cusp of change.
I decided on whim to watch Iranian TV for a few minutes. I found a station IRINN and they were highlighting some drawings regarding Gaza. I missed screenshotting some of the better ones (because it’s live and I can’t go back) but I did manage to get this one, I quite like it:
Three points are noteworthy. First, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure clearly understates inflation. It takes account of the ‘substitution’ that occurs when households shift to buying lower priced goods, effectively using households’ coping mechanisms as an excuse to artificially lower the inflation figures. It also gives a lower weighting to shelter costs, even though they have skyrocketed thanks to the housing bubble and the everything bubble. Second, since 2000, when the Federal Reserve accelerated its efforts to drive bubble-driven growth and changed its preferred inflation measure to PCE, the CPI has often been above the 2% target. No matter which inflation measure is used, inflation has generally been above interest rates during this period, making real interest rates negative. Finally, inflation today remains well above the 2% target, even if it has dipped below interest rates in recent months; yet the Federal Reserve flatly refuses to raise rates further, having brought them to 5.33% in July 2023. After all, this rise has already caused major ructions, from the failure of a string of banks beginning with Silicon Valley Bank to the instability in the commercial real estate, private equity and treasury markets and beyond.
Though the Federal Reserve claims that inflation is now down to 2.9% and predicts it will fall further, the Bureau of Labor Statistics disaggregation of the inflation numbers shows a rather different picture. While inflation has been dragged down by the lowering of food and energy prices, core inflation, a measure that excludes those prices because of their volatility, is still at 3.2%. With food and energy prices expected to increase in the coming months, not least thanks to continuing US and NATO warmongering, Powell’s declaration of victory may be premature.
What of his claim to have achieved a ‘soft landing’? There is equal reason to be sceptical. On the one hand, adverse jobs data suggest that a recession could still be looming. On the other, if interest rate cuts manage to prevent a recession, this leaves the door open to continuing inflation and ‘no landing’ at all. Raising the curtain on neoliberalism in 1979 with historically unprecedented rate hikes, the Federal Reserve has since, by nursing successive asset bubbles, deprived itself of the ability to use the only anti-inflationary weapon in its arsenal. Having arrogated to itself responsibility for managing the economy, it has now proven unable to do so.
Several shots were fired near Donald Trump's golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The Republican was there.
According to the former president's campaign, Trump is “safe”. Two people exchanged gunfire outside Donald Trump's golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
According to the NY Post, the men fired at each other and the shots were not aimed at the former president. Trump was not in danger at any time.
FBI opens investigation into “what appears to be an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.”
According to the press conference held by the FBI and the Secret Service, agents spotted a man with an AK-47 rifle and a GoPro at the fence of the golf course where Trump was.
The Secret Service shot the suspect four times. He fled and got into a black SUV and was apprehended minutes later.
A week or so ago I told my comrades here that my University was holding democratic elections. The process lasted for the entire week and was pretty heated up, the incumbent peronists were seeking to hold their positions of power while the Trots got along together and challenged them went each one by themselves, divided their votes and lost. Out of six lists presented, three were ideologically aligned with Trotskyism.
Will they learn from their mistakes? No, of course they wont. Now I will have to suffer two more years of pure peronist sellouts. Great.
Taking a short break from german news to bring UK news, apparently you gotta pay 11 quid next year to get a permit to enter the country. I'm sure this will not have any influence on the UKs tourism sector.
I mean really 11£? Like I know that someone in the government looked at the yearly numbers and thought they could raise like millions but it seems like a hurdle that will make people less likely to go to TERF island if they can't help it.
One burning bin and they have $10 m worth of kitted out piggies and helicopters out in response. Biggest police response to planned protests since the 2000 World Economic Forum
Lula's government intends to confiscate land from arsonists, says Marina Silva.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government is studying legal means to confiscate land from perpetrators of forest fires in the country, the Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, said on Wednesday.
According to the minister, the studies are inspired by the law that allows confiscation against owners who exploit labor analogous to slavery on their land.
Marina did not give a deadline for the conclusion of these studies, nor did she say when a proposal along these lines might be ready, but she defended the need to toughen up the laws that provide for punishments for perpetrators of arson. Currently, she said, the maximum sentence is five years in prison.
“This year and last year there was a 60% drop in deforestation over the two years, but criminals, knowing that the forest is losing moisture and making an alliance with climate change, set fire to the forest in order to destroy the forest without having to clear it,” he said.
Global Times - ‘For the sake of Filipino nation, we should not take any side’: Philippine scholar at Beijing Xiangshan Forum
"We have been historically very friendly with each other for centuries long before the Western colonizers came. Let's go back to where we have been."
This was true for the entirety of Maritime Southeast Asia.
On the other hand, Tabunda suggested that relevant parties should "abandon the 'territorial perspective' on the South China Sea, and adopt a new one similar to China's concept of "pursuing joint development while shelving disputes."
Joint development has proved to be a robust way to ensure peace while negating Western imperialist meddling.
"Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy has promised Ukraine 100 years of support. 1) He is lying. 2) So-called Ukraine will not last a quarter of that time. 3) The island called Britain is likely to sink in the next few years. Our hypersonic missiles will help if necessary,"
-Dmitry Medvedev
Is there a collection anywhere of every anti-democratic lawsuit by the “Democratic” Party to keep third-parties off the ballot? At least going back to like 2016 anyway, because I’m sure they’ve been doing it longer than that.
It seems like they’ve done it every election in every important state or district in the past few elections so an aggregate would provide an interesting view.
I was listening to CII Radio and Salaamedia on Monday. A guest speaker on the live radio mentioned the massacres are quite literally done just for fun (their words, not mine) and there has not been any clear objective than just wanton extermination. The rhetoric has also become much more bloodthirsty as well as self-sustaining, with the violence itself a catalyst. It was already bad enough a decade ago, but now it's much more directly hostile and slowly becoming more materially violent. Salaamedia even noted that in response to a journalist who escaped to South Africa and gave an interview on Newzroom Afrika, pro-"israeli" individuals were already screaming for her death because hostages. Even preschool aged children who were evacuated to South Africa for ICU are the targets of this violent sentiment.
It was even noted that if the South African government does not take any meaningful action against "israel", the Apartheid violence could slowly become normalized yet again. There is also the possibility of terrorism or targeted attacks against South African heads of state, and though while marginal at the moment, the chance isn't zero. Could there be an upsurge of anti-South African sentiment if say, the Diaper forces assault Ramallah, storm the South African embassy and destroy the Nelson Mandela Square to "send a message"?
The ICC/ICJ is still "on the fence" whether trapping over 2 million people into an area only slightly larger than municipal Johannesburg, starving them, destroying all infrastructure and services, further squeezing them into a critical mass of density, etc. constitutes a genocide. Likely because South Africa already questions the courts' legitimacy almost a decade ago and they're afraid to let it slip in their own words.
("Municipal Johannesburg" referring to the city and it's surrounding large/dense neighbourhoods, disregarding cities such as Soweto and Ekurhuleni that comprise the megacity as a whole. The municipality is almost the size of the Gaza Strip, however 6 million people live in it.)
"We feel like there is a mini energy crisis that no one is talking about,” a Greek government official said, ahead of the letter being sent to Brussels on Friday.
Why? Because to acknowledge the energy crisis is to acknowledge the death of German heavy industry. Euros are in for an extremely rude awakening, only to be delayed by the ECB putting rates through the floor. I think even the Greeks know this, otherwise a named official would've said the above quote.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced that he will push for the repeal of the Amnesty Law for human rights violations committed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
I'll treat this as news because why not: if you have insurance, first ask how much a procedure will cost out of pocket. Odds are it is somehow more expensive with insurance. Just say you thought your insurance was inactive if they press you, which they shouldn't. (Receptionists are lumpen)
saw an interesting idea elsewhere, everyone's always nervous that Russian red lines will mean nuclear war, but for instance all this talk about long range missile strikes into russia, given that they will have to be used in conjunction with satellite data, what are the odds that russia blows up a nato satellite instead?
(i personally think the most likely decision is arming Ansar Allah and other enemies of the west openly with more advanced weaponry, but an interesting idea I hadn't seen brought up elsewhere before)
Not sure how real this is but it's going around some groups. Apparently Chongqing did rain seeding to break a 13 day heatwave. People claim the result was unexpected crazy storms but authorities deny a link between the two.
Euros lowered interest rates, amerikkka could style on them by not lowering them for 3 months and dropping euro into abyss of parity to dollar via carry trade
Quantum computing is pretty much vaporware at this point, right? Kamala says we need to keep up our investments in QC and AI to beat China, but as far as I know, QC has some serious fundamental barriers that we are not able to overcome right now, which prevents the technology from even being used for the things people want it to be used for. So what are we competing for?
I was reading IBM's roadmap for QC development and it could honestly be the RDI Star Citizen promises with how out of sight and reliant they are on the technology improving at an unrealistic pace.
Maybe I'm cynical and have an outside perspective but quantum computing is starting to look like one of those dead ends that everyone looks back on and feels a little embarrassed by the whole thing.
These stealth fighters have become a more frequent tool in Russia’s aerial campaign, with increased missile strikes recorded since late February 2024.
Although Russia had previously deployed the Su-57 sporadically, the intensity and frequency of its use have grown significantly. In January, the UK Ministry of Defense reported that Su-57s had been used in Ukraine since at least June 2022, but their early deployment was limited. Now, these jets are playing a more active role, often launching strikes from Russian airspace over Kursk and Bryansk, as well as from occupied Luhansk.
In the past seven months alone, Russian forces have launched over 30 cruise missiles from Su-57 aircraft. Among these are the Kh-69 stealth cruise missiles, designed to destroy small, well-protected targets at ranges exceeding 180 miles [290km]. One notable strike using the Kh-69 occurred on April 11, 2024, when Ukraine’s Trypillia Thermal Power Plant near Kyiv was destroyed.
So the Su-57's stealth capabilities, along with Russian air defence and cover, allow the Su-57 to fly over Luhansk oblast. It can then launch it's stealth cruise missiles from there, thus extending their effective range when compared to being launched from conventional non stealth aircraft that launch the missiles from within Russia proper. A stealth one two punch that is incredibly difficult to stop, a stealth jet launching a stealth cruise missile. With a conventional aircraft launch, you'd at least know where the missile was launched from, and when, before the missile disappears from radar. No such thing with the Su-57. I predicted such a strategy back in April when the strike on the powerplant was first made public knowledge.
In general this kind of "force multiplication" strategy is seen quite a bit with the Russian Air Force. Another example is the MiG-31K fighter jet as a launch platform for the Kinzhal hypersonic air launched ballistic missile. A fighter jet that can fly at over Mach 3 (with the caveat of excessive engine wear) launching a hypersonic missile that flies at Mach 5+. A speedy one two punch that is also difficult to stop.
The Su-57s are also equipped with the Kh-58USHK anti-radiation missile, capable of targeting radar systems from distances of up to 150 miles [240km], depending on launch conditions.
Reading in between the lines here, it is suggested that this made up the other 10 or so strikes. Anti radiation missiles against air defence radars and platforms. Since the Su-57 has stealth capabilities, this would mean that other aircraft would be required to bait the SAM sites and radars so that the anti radiation missiles can accuire a target. Must be a terrible and thankless job to fly as a wild weasel on SEAD missions involving the Su-57. Baiting the SAM sites and radars, but not being able to fire on them yourself.
Can we have some sober conversations on the retirement age without accusing each other of racism or chuvanism ? They put this out on their state media - CGTN. That is not a western mouthpiece. China is our peer. They hold over 1.5 billion human lives.
The reason this suprised me was because when Bernie 2016 campaign was going on there was a LOT of discussion on Social Security. Expanding it, lowering the age. Medicare in particular and the phasing it to lower the age of eligibility until we were all covered.
While doing research I found some pretty sobering numbers.
If you look at the social security ages of death from birth stats Approximately 1 in 5 do not make it to 60. Approximately 1 in 4 do not make it to 65. That is the human factor in raising the pension age.
Funding for applied research, which receives roughly two-thirds of Russia’s federal research spending, will be hit hardest by the cuts, dropping from 458 billion rubles ($4.9 billion) this year to 362 billion in 2025 and 260 billion in 2026, according to a recent analysis by the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge of the Russian Higher School of Economics. Spending on basic research will remain essentially flat, falling slightly from 261 billion rubles to 235 billion in 2025, then increasing to 276 billion in 2026.
Seems like the Brazilian Supreme Court has seized basically all of Elon Musk's stuff in Brazil to pay for the debt he has with the Brazilian goverment that refused to pay.
The communist party (PVDA-PTB) is polling at second place with 24.7% of the votes after the conservatives (N-VA) at 28.3% during 2018 the communists got 8.7% so this is actually huge, don't know too much about Belgian politics but maybe we got someone around for it.
Indicated changes from this polls
Communist +16%
Conservatives -7%
Greens -5.4%
Far Right +6.6%
SocDems -3.2%
Christian Dems -3.8%
Market Liberals -2.9%
I.e. center collapsing with communist making huge gains as well as the far right.
Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury who dedicated much of his writings to the Palestinian cause and taught at universities around the world, making him one of Lebanon’s most prominent intellectuals, has died. He was 76.
Has anyone read him? I picked up Gate of the Sun recently but haven't started it yet.
Russia didn't take the bait and pull troops from the Donbas, just took a few weeks to organise troops from other places and form an orderly counteroffensive.
the last couple days there's been a vid of putin talking about potential Russian escalation in response to US authorization of long range missile strikes against Russia, with putin's rationale being that this type of missile is different than previous munitions in that they require active NATO servicemen involvement in the launch, as well as guidance from NATO ISR capacity (e.g. satellites). (see discussion on latest MoA and simplicius). I don't understand how this is different than use of storm shadow missiles/ATACMS - both of those require active NATO servicemen to do the launch as well as NATO ISR capacity (which has been provided for all kinds of things, not just missiles anyway). It seems bizarre to lay out a red line that's already been crossed. I don't know if I'm misunderstanding something or if the russian doomers are correct about how much their state loves to allow their red lines to be crossed.
Hopium for the day: imagine how much it fucking sucks to run the state of Israel right now. Sure you get to up the body count and get out your rage on women and children, but is it worth it?
Russias Kursk Counter ?Counter? offensive is progressing well , apperently they are currently pushing into this river sourrounded in the Centre very succesfully.
🔻 The zionist army admits to the serious wounding of an officer in the central #Gaza Strip after a tunnel collapsed on top of an invading force, according to their report.
Last fall Norwegian police had a "preventative conversation" with Marius Borg Høiby, the 27 year old cocaine-loving stepson of the aging king's hand-picked successor, crown prince Haakon. So reports Norwegian government broadcaster NRK.
Norwegian police uses conversations like these as a preventative measure against individuals who are at risk of ending in crime. The conversations are meant to convince individuals to change their ways before it is too late.
The conversation doesn't seem to have helped in Høiby's case. The popularity of Norway's monarchy has taken a skydive recently, in large part due to the Høiby's behaviour. Last month Høiby was arrested by Norwegian police and he has now been charged with assault, vandalism, theft and stalking following a cocaine and booze-fueled rampage in a woman's apartment. He has since received a restraining order against the woman. Two other ex-partners of Høiby has since come forward and reported abusive behaviour to the police.
In Kursk news, several mappers are reporting that Russia's 155th Marine infantry division are now pushing Ukraine back significantly, having recaptured about 10% of the incursion in a single day.
Bolivia inks $976mn deal with Russia to tap world’s largest lithium reserves
Bolivia has clinched a significant deal with Russia’s Uranium One Group, owned by state-run nuclear corporation Rosatom, to establish a lithium carbonate production facility in the Salar de Uyuni, one of the world's largest lithium-bearing salt flats.
The $976mn project will use Russian Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technology, enabling the production of up to 14,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium annually. This is a key step in Bolivia’s ambition to industrialise its vast lithium reserves, which are estimated to be the largest globally, at around 23mn tonnes.
Last year, Uranium One, along with Chinese companies CBC and Citic Guoan Group, was chosen to set up pilot DLE plants in Bolivia, which are expected to expand to industrial-scale operations over time. The Bolivian government has set a target of exporting 50,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent each year, aiming to establish the country as a key player in the global lithium supply chain, particularly for electric vehicle batteries.
This is fairly significant. Bolivia has a lot of lithium reserves (hence elon musk's threat to coup bolivia) but their reserves are jot amenable to the same type of extraction technologies as are used further south in Chile/Argentina in the salt flats. Conventional techniques involve drilling wells to pumping lithium containing salt brine to the surface, evaporating it in the sun, then processing the leftover salt. This requires a lot of disturbance area and leaves a bunch of salt waste. It also requires the right kind of dry climate. Direct lithium extraction involves pumping up that same brine and then recovering lithium through chemical means, then returning the lithium depleted brine back underground. This approach is akin to SAGD oil recovery in Canada or insitu uranium leaching in Kazakhstan.
Setting aside the technical aspect of this project, obviously the ties to Russia and China are an important bulwark against the American Monroe doctrine.
Peru's former dictator, Alberto Fujimori, died on Wednesday afternoon in Lima. Fujimori died in freedom, after receiving a questionable presidential pardon, and with millions of soles in debt in civil reparations, which were never paid to the victims of his crimes. He did not beat cancer
I guess Fujimori is not going to make it to his court hearing today. And he really did hate Keiko enough, that he prefered to die rather than be with her. lol.
Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Moraes orders the transfer of R$18.3 million (3 million US dollars) from X and Starlink to the Federal Government and unblocks the companies' accounts
According to the STF, the money will go towards 'full payment of the fine due for non-compliance with court orders'. The social network was fined for not blocking criminal profiles or those with anti-democratic messages.
The money will be used to pay the fines imposed by the courts against X for:
failing to block profiles that disseminated criminal messages and attacks on democracy, disrespecting a series of court decisions;
withdrawing its legal representatives from Brazil - which also led the STF to take X off the air in Brazil.
According to the STF, with the decision, Moraes ordered that the remaining bank balances and assets of Starlink and X in Brazil be unblocked. Both companies are linked to South African billionaire Elon Musk. In the case of Starlink, there are other shareholders with a stake in the company in Brazil - and the blocking of this part of the assets, ordered by Moraes at the end of August, was criticized by right-wing legal experts.
There is a virtual education system that is free across the entire nation, which serves the dual goal of democratizing education and ensuring that those in rural areas or without much free time for university can still achieve degrees and a quality education
Sounds fake. Online education can be OK in some situations but a claim that you can do a whole degree worth or that it'll be high quality has been false every other time so why would it be true now?
If you are extremely busy then you are exhausted the rest of the time so it isn't trivial to just slowly plug away at an intellectual task.
It might be a fine project and people might benefit from it. but no reason to be so very credulous about the likely outcomes.
Serious doubts have been raised about the promise of Denmark's succdem-led right-wing regime to open a "100% green" domestic flight route by 2025. So writes government broadcaster DR.
The plans were announced by Denmark's leader Mette Frederiksen in her new years' address in 2022 where it was claimed that the "100% green" domestic flight route would be an achievement not only for Denmark but for the entire world. As of now commercial flights are only allowed to use 50% so-called "Sustainable Aviation Fuel". The rest is still traditional fossil fuels.
The use of hydrocarbons is being criticised for greenwashing by among others the two moderate pro-democracy parties SF and the Red-Greens who claim they had expected the "100% green" flights to use electricity-based solutions powered by sustainable wind power rather than just "importing spent frying oil from China" to fuel the planes when they first made the agreement.
Thus far the state has spent USD 118 million on the "100% green" domestic flight route.
Update on Algerian elections: permanent results have been announced.
Aouchiche Youcef: 6.14%
Tebboune Abdel-Madjid: 84.30%
Cherif Abdelaali Hassan: 9.56%
Was announced on 13:00, I'll see if any members say anything about it.
The Prime Minister held talks with Joe Biden in the White House to discuss pleas from Volodymyr Zelensky to let the country use the Storm Shadow missiles.
But John Kirby, a spokesman for the US national security council, said there would be no announcement on long-range missiles after the meeting. He did not rule out one at a later date.
The Ukrainians aren't allowed to use stormshadows or atacms inside Russia, at least not yet. Kid Starver went to the US to do a bit of warmongering but presumably the pentagon told everyone no. Clearly the state department is pushing a more escalatory line on this than the pentagon, which I suppose makes sense because the pentagon represents the people that would actually have to fight and die and have their widgets blown up.
The president of Senegal dissolves the parliament (France 24 link be warned)
Basically his political party PASTEF which is described as left wing doesn't hold much in the Parliament of Senegal, elections will take place in the next 90 days instead of 2027.
Ukraine has released video footage of their assault on a Russian oil rig in the Black Sea. As a reminder, this assualt was unsuccessful and the Ukrainians were repelled or killed. The most interesting part of the footage is in the middle of the video, we get a glimpse of the Russian Su-30SM that was lost during the the battle. No footage of the shoot down or crash of the jet though, just the Su-30SM performing a low pass.
Today @ 9 PM EST, I will be playing the Donald Trump vs Kamala Harris Debate at the link above. I played the Biden v Trump debate on the same channel. For the Biden v Trump debate, we had around 200 hexbear users in the chat. Before/after the debate, I will play news and commentary related to the debate. The video feed will be streamed from youtube.
I am choosing to not watch the debate on /c/movies because of their usage of peertube (tankietube). Before the debate they are playing Sopranos from peertube. Using peertube exposes your IP address to other users which is why their thread mentions using a VPN. Peertube will not be allowed in the channel that I linked.
For once I have to thank the YouTube rabbit hole for taking me to a "debate" between Candice Owens and Rabbi Shmuley on Piers Morgan. It's like the perfect combo. I don't think I've ever seen two fascists be more correct about each other.
While there can be a number of causes of high inflation, almost all hyperinflations have been caused by government budget deficits financed by currency creation. Peter Bernholz analysed 29 hyperinflations (following Cagan's definition) and concludes that at least 25 of them have been caused in this way. A necessary condition for hyperinflation is the use of paper money instead of gold or silver coins. Most hyperinflations in history, with some exceptions, such as the French hyperinflation of 1789–1796, occurred after the use of fiat currency became widespread in the late 19th century. The French hyperinflation took place after the introduction of a non-convertible paper currency, the assignat.
The Cradle - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the US will announce new sanctions on Iran for sending short-range ballistic missiles to Russia.
In October last year Danish Social Democrat MP Kasper Sand Kjær surprisingly resigned from parliament, stating that he "wanted to try life outside of politics". The resignation was unexpected as he was predicted to have a great career in the party that leads the country's ruling right-wing regime.
Today he is standing trial, pleading guilty to charges of credit card fraud for an amount equal to USD 6.700. The fraud was committed while on a trip to Vienna with a parliamentary committee in may last year where he falsely reported his card stolen and tried to get the bank to cancel a number of transactions.
The prosecution is recommending a prison sentence, possibly a suspended sentence with conditions of community service, to the court.
The expansion of NATO into Sweden and Finland, as well as increased paranoia in the west following the Ukraine war, has prompted the Nordic countries to step up their military collaboration. So reports Danish government broadcaster DR.
Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland has already agreed on going together to purchase new military uniforms. The move seems mostly motivated by economic factors as the four western statelets will get a better price by placing a larger order together, even though the uniforms will be in differen camouflage patterns for each nation.
The four airforces are also collaborating more closely and although nothing has been decided yet, top military leaders are openly talking about constructing a shared operational headquarters for the four Nordic countries in Norway.
Bit idea: say all the weirdos trying to merc Trump aren't necessarily antifascist, they are just the American equivalent of the SA and other right wingers Hitler purged and therefore are super paranoid for obvious reasons. (American Rohm is Milo yapadapolis or whatever his name was)
I have read taibbi piece in dropsite, dunno why comrade was unhappy, fairly typical of him musings on 90s russia.
Journalists aren't our ideological allies, the most you can hope they'll ask interesting questions coinciding with our interests, and be financed to pursue them.
I haven't been following Ukraine beyond headlines, but with the news that the US will supply them with long range missiles I'm wondering what the win condition for Russia is?
I'm basically talking out of my ass so correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like they've successfully called Russia's bluff about escalating the war beyond Ukraine. I know Russia has tried multiple times to end the war through various deals, and they've also been very very careful about avoiding unnecessary civilian casualties. It is obvious at this point that the west wants the war to continue by any means necessary.
I'm just thinking like... Is there a world where Russia holds a line in the sand and appeals to the rest of the world to force Ukraine to negotiate? Like pull back to Crimea and Donbass or whatever and assume a defensive posture? I just don't see a way out for them at this point. I hate to say it but it does seem like this whole thing has been pretty successful at slowly sapping Russia's capabilities and leaving them with fewer options.
How do you win against an enemy with no soul and unlimited resources? Is it possible for them to "win" through PR? I fully believe the invasion was justified, and Russia has conducted itsself with great restraint. Is that story getting told to the rest of the world?
Idk man, the missiles thing got me feeling some type of way. Fuck the USA.
Wot if it was #blockcheney and it was about building blockage in aorta. (This is news as it describes trustless, auditable mechanism of the lich elimination)
BRASILIA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Chinese troops will take part for the first time in Brazil's annual military exercises this week that also include U.S. forces, the Brazilian Navy said on Tuesday.
Pentagon spokesperson Major Pete Nguyen said, however, U.S. and Chinese forces would not be training together at the Brazil's "Operation Formosa" exercises.
"While the PRC are also present at the exercise, U.S. troops are not training alongside or with the PRC," Nguyen said. The PRC, or People's Republic of China, is the country's official name.
China sent observers last year to the Operation Formosa exercises, but will have troops on the ground this year, the Brazilian Navy, which coordinates the drills, said in a statement. U.S. troops participated as well in 2023.
"In Operation Formosa 2024 we have for the first time the participation of portions of troops made up of both friendly nations," the Navy said of the two superpowers present this year. It did not detail the size of their contingents.
The Brazilian military will deploy 3,000 troops in the three-day exercises starting on Wednesday, and they will train using aircraft, tanks, armored and amphibious vehicles, artillery and missile and rocket launchers, it said.
The exercises, which use live ammunition, take place outside the town on Formosa, located 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Brazil's capital Brasilia.
Invited military personnel participate in workshops to exchange experiences, the Navy said, and observers from eight countries will attend the exercises, including Argentina, France, Italy, Pakistan and South Africa.
The Pentagon's Nguyen said U.S. Marines were only at Formosa to train with their Brazilian partners. "By working side-by-side with our Brazilian counterparts, we are enhancing our collective ability to respond to regional security challenges," he said.
The report describes that "israel" is planning military maneuvers targeting both Lebanese and Syrian territories, aiming to cut off Hezbollah’s land supply routes (whether through Syria or Iraq) and sever the connection between the Bekaa and the south.
In order to do this, it requires a ground operation to invade southern Lebanon and southwestern Syria, "advancing eastwards toward the heart of Lebanon to cut off the route between the Bekaa and the south."
According to the sources, IOF plans include striking Syrian forces to weaken their ability to assist Hezbollah, and encouraging Syrian opposition forces to escalate operations against the Syrian Arab Army.
Twitter thread
The supposed zi0nist plan for an invasion of Lebanon (and Syria):
Today, Al-Akhbar editor-in-chief Ibrahim Al-Amin published a bombshell report regarding leaked "israeli" plans for an aggression against Lebanon, in light of constant threats by zionist leaders to do so and assurances about the return of over 100,000 settlers displaced from northern occupied Palestine.
Western diplomatic efforts to separate the Gaza and Lebanon fronts have failed, with Hezbollah rejecting proposals to reach a ceasefire agreement independent of the Gaza genocide war, according to the source citing envoys.
This is despite numerous efforts and threats by western envoys to Lebanon, using the pretext of "returning settlers" to justify a larger war.
Such ridiculous proposals included demilitarization of the south, large deployment of UNFIL forces, and disarmament up to 10km from the border
Envoys suggested that the likelihood of an aggression on Lebanon increases "day by day," stating that American efforts to prevent it are futile.
The report describes that "israel" is planning military maneuvers targeting both Lebanese and Syrian territories, aiming to cut off Hezbollah’s land supply routes (whether through Syria or Iraq) and sever the connection between the Bekaa and the south.
In order to do this, it requires a ground operation to invade southern Lebanon and southwestern Syria, "advancing eastwards toward the heart of Lebanon to cut off the route between the Bekaa and the south."
According to the sources, IOF plans include striking Syrian forces to weaken their ability to assist Hezbollah, and encouraging Syrian opposition forces to escalate operations against the Syrian Arab Army.
Further, Lebanese factions hostile to Hezbollah are meeting with Syrian opposition groups, discussing the potential role of Syrian opposition in a possible "israeli" war against Hezbollah; these talks (which were held in Germany, Turkey, and elsewhere and whose members are known) have focused on Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Syrian opposition groups. They seek to play on sectarian chords to incite refugees against the Lebanese resistance, under assurances of regime change in Syria.
American intelligence also suggests Lebanese politicians inciting against Syrian refugees could face U.S. sanctions, as part of broader efforts to manipulate regional dynamics against Hezbollah.
Lastly, there are worries of Syrian opposition groups that previously had ties with "israel" to express readiness to cooperate with the IOF in this potential offensive (one such opposition member now lives in a zionist settlement in the Golan).
Feel free to post or recommend any books, essays, studies, articles, and even stories related to Nicaragua.
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:
spoiler
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?
The interest burden on outstanding US debt remains a major drag on the budget. Interest costs in the first 11 months of the fiscal year totaled $1.05 trillion, up 30% from 2023. Interest costs have never exceeded $1 trillion a year before now, though Treasury officials noted that as a share of gross domestic product, the ratio was higher in the early 1990s.
ehehehe. (mmt enjoyers - shoo, people buying amerikan debt are not mmt aficionados)
Its quite funny how usa unloads its shit onto the world (eu/japan) and they just eat it.
Mexico and Nicaragua had had problems with nicaraguan migrants and México calling out the crack down on protests, but they have been mostly positive and nowdays both support each other in projects and the drama in ecuador
Interesting thread about how "hidden tension is brewing beneath the normal relationship between Russia and Iran." No idea how true it is. The journalist is a former Press TV current Al Jazeera journalist. https://xcancel.com/fresh_sadegh/status/1833130811136041335
More interesting tidbit:
During Putin’s recent visit to Azerbaijan, FM Lavrov accused Armenia of posing an obstacle to the esaliahment of the #Zangezur corridor which would connect mainland Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan enclave in Armenia.
Per media, Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Kahmenei has openly told Russia’s Putin and Armenia’s Pashinian that the Tehran opposes the opening of the #Zangezur and they are aware of Tehran’s concerns. Iranian reformist media pundits accuse Russia of stabbing in Iran’s back.
Russia pursues its own interests reg. the Zangezur, so does Iran. Russia is seemingly alarmed with a reformist-led govt in Tehran and the return of the New Yorkers gang (Zarif &Co.). this as attacks against Russia in Iranian media increased since Pezeshkian’s election.
In a meeting held in May, the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers agreed to continue negotiations on outstanding issues. On Monday, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev agreed to continue peace talks with Armenia in Kazakhstan, which hosted a meeting of the foreign ministers of both republics in May.
“The proposal to hold negotiations between Baku and Yerevan in Astana is acceptable to Azerbaijan,” the Azerbaijani presidency said in a statement released at the end of a telephone conversation between Aliyev and Kazakhstan’s President Kasim-Yomart Tokayev.
During the May meeting, the Azerbaijani and Armenian ministers noted the differences that the parties still have in reaching a peace treaty, but agreed to continue negotiations on outstanding issues.
Recently, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that he had proposed to Azerbaijan to sign the points that have already been agreed upon in the peace treaty between the two countries and to continue negotiations on those that have not been agreed upon. According to Azerbaijan, the text of the peace treaty has been agreed upon by the parties between 80 and 90 percent.
Reading some of the comments lately has caused me to doom so fucking hard that I legit had trouble sleeping last night and I almost felt slightly nauseuous.
I typed up a long vent/screed. CW for some things such as doomerisms, mentions of suicide, violent fantasies, and really unhinged worldbuilding. I can't tell you how much of it is sincere or how much of it is coming from my deteriorating mental state
I apologize in advance
Also since this is really long I think I need to split it into two parts
Part 1:
spoiler
God has Fascism ever truly lost? It feels like they always get the last laugh. People here call it unsustainable but it seems like it's able to sustain itself entirely through pure ideology. It doesn't need to be efficient or build anything, it just needs to control the world's resources with an iron grip and burrow its vile ideology into the minds of everyone, and it just becomes self-perpetuating. God why do so many people love fascism so much?
Fuckfuckfuck it's starting to look like Fascism never really loses, it just suffers setbacks. The Nazis failed to conquer the Soviet Union, but that doesn't matter because the west preserved Nazi ideology whereas the Soviet Union collapsed, it was ripped apart and its legacy is being torn to shreds. The Nazis got what they wanted in the end.
The Vietnam war? Vietnam has to live in a US-led world order and has to play by their rules. Same with every country that has had a successful revolution. Cuba's still being strangled by the U.S. DPRK is isolated while occupied Korea stands entirely on U.S. backing. The Black Panthers were broken.
Spain's first astronaut? Okay I don't know much about Spain but I presume things aren't good there, despite some fascist shitbag getting owned. Once again, only a setback, but not a defeat.
And apparently the dollar is an invincible weapon that China and Russia can't do anything about. With the way things are going they're totally just going to succumb and become U.S. colonies aren't they?
And China raising the retirement age? That's a sign, the beginning of the end. This will soon lead to China's collapse and the west will pick its carcass dry again. In fact it might happen in the next 5 minutes after this post!!!!
Settler colonialists have always been successful in genociding the natives: Americans, Aussies, and soon it will be Israel too. We continue to live in the fucking aftermath of said genocides.
We might not have been born in time to witness the liberation of Palestine. Instead we may have been born in time to witness yet another successful genocide being carried out, and the beginning of Israel becoming the eternal hegemon of the middle east.
Do we just passively accept that Fascism really is the strongest and most supreme ideology? That white people really are the master race? That they've been able to cow and domesticate every country and keep them under their stranglehold for centuries, and they're still doing it and nothing can stop them? That they'd burrow their ideology into the minds of every single human being in the world? Look at how it maintains itself and self-perpetuates, it just keeps going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going. No amount of fuckups will ever change that. Countries like China need to do everything right or they're doomed, but the west can shoot itself in the foot constantly and still win.
They're laughing. The Fascists and libs must be living in fucking heaven right now. They're experiencing nothing but constant sheer euphoria every single day because the powers that be are catering to their every whim. Same for the Zionist scum knowing that with the U.S. backing them it's impossible for them to lose, that they will eventually finish their genocide without setbacks. They know the world is biased towards them, they know that if there is a God, it is a God that favors all the Hitlers of the world. Meanwhile China doesn't do everything we want, while the U.S. does literally everything the fash want. If the good guys always win then that means Fascism, genocide, and colonialism are considered good in the eyes of this God right? Then it is a cruel God that deserves to be attacked and dethroned.
Lokomotiv trounced Red Star 6-2 holding a comfortable lead throughout the game! Lokomotiv has won all 4 games they've played this season so far, let's keep that up!
Lokomotiv next plays Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk this Saturday at 5pm Moscow Standard Time
so here is some counter cyclical copium for my news mega comrades, it's a chinese nationalist dongbei dude ranting about geopolitics, fairly popular on tiktok as an alternative for the less academically inclined viewers. think not boring mercouris with a funny (hillbilly) accent doing things that aren't just summarizing telegram.
i can define nouns for people if there is any confusion
Routh also allegedly published a near 300 page manifesto book titled "Ukraine's Unwinnable War" (excerpts here) in which he advocated for giving Ukraine nuclear weapons on the condition that they all be used to carry out a nuclear first strike against Russia. He was an atheist, identified as a political independent and criticised Trump for January 6. He called for the assassination of Putin by firing thousands of missiles at all of his residencies across the globe, even saying he would do it himself if he was allowed to borrow a missile boat. He compared his plan to assassinate Putin to 9/11. He also wrote about his intention to assassinate Donald Trump and apologised for voting for him in 2016. He also supported Juan Guiado. There's a video of him with his hair dyed in the colours of the Ukraine flag, sounding as if he's a recruiter for a terrorist organisation.
and lastly
He was a big fan of John Kerry, because of the Iran nuclear deal. I am serious here.
China has some deflationary issues in the supply chain, expect more lib shenanigans from them
(also deflation is based in the planned economy, means you spend less money and labor time producing same shit, but in porky economy it means your credit is unlikelier to be repaid and thus its the devil)
In 2021 Denmark's ruling Social Democrats and Liberal Party stated that they wanted to close a loophole that allows mayors to receive severance pay despite having found new employment. Since then nothing has happened and mayors who leave office to start new jobs continue to receive a double salary.
Ex-mayors who have recently received double salaries have either no comments to the press or gives short statements about how they're just following the rules.
The Social Democrats and Liberals who talked about how much they wanted to close the loophole back then have no comments to the press now and instead refer to Sophie Løhde, head of the Liberal Party-controlled ministry of the interior. She had made an appointment for an interview with government broadcaster DR but cancelled at the last minute and issued a short written statement instead where she promised that the loophole was a thing she would be "looking into".
Together with the centrist right-liberal "Moderate" party, the Social Democrats and the Liberal Party makes up the nation's ruling junta. Together they control a majority of seats in Denmark's rubber-stamp parliament.
Unfortunately Lokomotiv lost today's game to Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk 1-0 in a close run game. The railwaymen put in a good effort but it just wasn't enough.
Lokomotiv next faces off against Lada Togliatti on Tuesday, September 17th at 7pm Moscow Standard Time!
Demonstrators entered the Mexican Senate to protest against the judicial reform bill, which changes the entire concept of the judiciary in Mexico. The session was suspended indefinitely until further notice.
The Argentine Congress approved on Tuesday the veto proposed by President Javier Milei to pension reform, which disadvantages retirees in obtaining better pensions.
The veto was approved by 153 votes in favour, 87 against and 8 abstentions with the complicity of members of the Radical Civic Union, a party that promoted this measure, while two other legislators from this force were absent from the vote.
The five UCR legislators met with Milei and changed their vote, so the veto on the reform that provides for a rise in retirement assets and a new formula of mobility was imposed.
Meanwhile, the Argentine Naval Prefecture (PNA) took action against demonstrators peacefully in front of the Legislative Palace to reject the Chamber of Deputies’ endorsement of the presidential veto.
According to the platform Page 12, a retiree claimed that they were “on the sidewalk and we started pushing the same police for the middle of the street. They wanted to keep pushing us further inside and I wanted to go out, to return to the sidewalk, and there from behind they put the spray (tear gas) 20 centimeters from my eyes and shot me”.
For her part, the current speaker of the assemblies of La Poderosa, Negra Albornoz, said that “it is a huge outrage that old people are being abused. Today they are fighting for miserable retirement and this Congress is turning its back on them”.
In the meantime, the Lower House did not get the two-thirds necessary to push through the bill, the Buenos Aires press union mobilized to repudiate the repression against the press together with the Association of Graphic Reporters of the Argentine Republic and to defend retirements together with the trade union, social and human rights movement.
With the slogan “Unity in the streets for rights”, the mobilizers also demanded decent wages from the workers, following the rejection of the pension reform initiative, which provided for a monthly retirement update formula combining the inflation rate and average wage variation plus an extraordinary adjustment of 8,1 percent to April holdings to offset monthly inflation of 20.6 percent in January.
The retirement mobility project was approved by the Senate on 22 August with 61 votes in favour, while Javier Milei vetoed the entire project on 2 September, on the assumption that the measure was ‘manifestly violating the legal framework in force”.
Pensioners were asking for an increase of 8.1 percent in retirement, in a context where Argentina has six million retirees, according to the Statistical Bulletin of Social Security, of which 64.4 percent charge minimum pension.
Bizarre that both would-be Trump assassins are perfect archetypes of the types of undecided voters that this whole election spectacle is presumably for: a neocon fopo crank and an apolitical dullard.
What are ten years of Ramelow compared to the appearance of Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia? The good woman did not limit herself to handing out ten-cent pieces to the needy and placing half-empty Coke Zero cans next to wastepaper baskets, no, she was observed carrying out activities that were considered degrading. She personally cared for sick people who sought help. In 1226, the German Landgravine had a hospital built below the Wartburg (Eisenach), where she cared for those who were most seriously ill. Whether lepers or cripples, she was simply close to the people.
And Bodo, the ex-Landgrave? What does he have to offer compared to the Thuringian Landgravine? Well, he is considered the "Twitter King" and the state leader who looked at his cell phone the most in the local state parliament. Did he read it? 26.4 percent of Thuringians did not vote. That's the same as in Saxony (25.6 percent). Taking non-voters into account, the traffic light parties together received 7.5 percent (Saxony: 9.4 percent). And because after ten long years of socialism (ahem) under Ramelow, the alternatives had been completely exhausted, they simply voted for the self-proclaimed "alternative." Sounds logical. At least for my father (89), who can't find any clothes, household goods or specialist doctors in his small Thuringian town. For him, the "Wessi Ramelow" is to blame, and then I have to hear my father's favorite joke again: "An Ostrogoth hits a resident of the Western Roman Empire. With a spear in the heart." Almost 35 years after the collapse, nothing is forgiven and nothing is forgotten there!
The mood in the green heart of Germany can also be sensed in the following statement by the venerable hikers on the Rennsteig: "Since we became West, there are hardly any echoes in the mountains." In other words, people have long been speechless. If we ignore Berlin, its suburbs and small areas like Leipzig or the crazy "state capitals," Germany and the Middle East are a completely torn, neglected, devastated country whose inhabitants look back on their lives with shame and try to somehow get by. You have to see these towns and villages! And the disinformation agencies MDR, NDR and RBB put a lot of effort into their borderline idiotic magic. The rest of the opinion-making is "regulated" by the market (newspapers, magazines) anyway, which means that East Germans, according to a study from 2021, only buy large German national daily newspapers in homeopathic doses (Süddeutsche Zeitung 2.5 percent of total circulation, FAZ 3.4 percent). Which is not surprising if you can't get your hands on a copy in which the only things you can read about East Germany are keywords like "right-wing radicalism," "Stasi," "doping," "democratic deficit," "GDR mismanagement," and "unjust regime."
East Germans are not concerned with the AfD, they are concerned with a deep-seated frustration, a helplessness, a lack of perspective. Fear is not a good advisor either. After almost 35 years, most people in the East have understood that the West is alien and hostile to them, from the very beginning, but it rules! At the same time, people are ashamed of having been so naive in 1990, of having messed things up themselves by throwing the fatherland into the jaws of a monster. Shame and rebellion, that is East Germany. But what unites us with West Germany is the lack of a socialist alternative.
President Lula da Silva will send Congress a Provisional Measure creating the Climate Emergency, Lula says fires are caused by 'people who want to destroy this country' According to the president, fires not only destroy the environment, but also compromise the population's health and quality of life.
The aim is to speed up public policies to deal with climate extremes. A Climate Authority and a scientific technical committee will be set up to support the government's actions.
I'm sure that in Brazil the President can sign these Provisional Measures that come into force immediately, as long as they are not unconstitutional, and Congress has 30 days to analyze and decide whether to maintain or veto the Provisional Measure. And even if the congress veto it, the Supreme Court can force the executive and congress to accept it.
Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori died on Wednesday at the age of 86 from cancer, his daughter Keiko Fujimori confirmed in X.
«After a long battle against cancer, our father, Alberto Fujimori, has just left to meet the Lord. We ask those who appreciated it, accompany us with a prayer for the eternal rest of your soul. Thank you, dad! Keiko, Hiro, Sachie and Kenji Fujimori (sons of the former president)», wrote Keiko Fujimori in her social network account. Previously, the local media indicated that the dictator was in a state of gravity.
The Peruvian dictator was released after he received a presidential pardon in 2017 that allowed his release during the government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, after being sentenced in 2009 to 25 years of imprisonment for crimes against humanity, corruption and responsible for the Pativilca case, a multiple murder committed by the Colina Group.
According to Transparency International, Fujimori has been considered one of the most corrupt leaders in the world.
I guess he won't be running for President next year.
During a broadcast of the TV program Con Maduro+, the Venezuelan head of state said he respects the decision of the far right-wing opposition former presidential candidate of request asylum in Spain.
President Maduro also pointed out that “Here (Venezuela), hatred, violence, division and persecution of people for their ideas, ways of thinking and being cannot proliferate.”
Maduro asked the opposition forces that ignored the Nation’s institutions to respect the rules of the game and accept the election results as well: “We have played fair and we have won.”
In this regard, he pointed out that Venezuela has to make severe anti-fascist laws and exalted the first World Congress against fascism to be held in the country on 10 and 11 September.
The head of state also highlighted the National Assambley’s anti-fascist law legislative discussions. “This new law is a way to block any form of this political expression in our national territory,” said the president.
On Saturday night, FM Yvan Gil confirmed that Edmundo Gonzalez left Venezuelan territory of his own accord.
On Sunday, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez reiterated that Venezuela held talks with Spain regarding the departure of far-right former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, while the Spanish government denies any political negotiation between the two nations.
“Extensive discussions and contacts took place to operationalize the departure of the opposition figure Gonzalez from the country, with the full guarantees provided by a safe-conduct agreement between both governments,” Rodriguez stated on her Telegram channel.
She was responding to statements made by Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, who did not deny that conversations on the matter occurred but rejected the idea of negotiations involving reciprocal agreements. He insisted that the asylum and transfer to Madrid were requested personally by Gonzalez.
“There has been no political negotiation of any kind between the Spanish government and the Venezuelan government… The Spanish government did not offer any reciprocal concession to facilitate the departure of Edmundo Gonzalez,” Albares said.
In response, the Venezuelan vice president asserted that it is “a communicational fact” that an aircraft of the Spanish Air Force transported Gonzalez, following authorization from Venezuela’s aviation authorities.
Rodriguez, who called the Spanish minister’s statement “false,” emphasized that Venezuela and Spain maintained the “relevant contacts” and, in adherence to international law, the Bolivarian government granted Gonzalez the safe-conduct.
On Saturday night, Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Yvan Gil confirmed that Edmundo Gonzalez left Venezuelan territory of his own accord, headed to Spain, after receiving a safe-conduct from the Bolivarian government.
The following day, Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab also confirmed Gonzalez’s departure and stated that his office respects the decision made by the administration of President Nicolas Maduro.
What are our thoughts of this video and its anarchist take on the Palestinian situation? I enjoyed it and its perspective, but I’m curious what communists think about the anarchist tendencies found within.
34 people in Chiba, Japan got food poisoning due to a restaurants new menu item, burger you can drink. It's literally just warm raw meat.
Nitter Source
#Slaps Top of Daily Puzzle Game "You can Fit so Many Death to Israel in this Bad Boy" #920 4/6
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Their analysis on the recent rift between Gallant and Netanyahu is saying that the two have different ideas on what to do with the military to free the hostages. Netanyahu seems to want another big hostage freeing event, like on June 8 when they killed at least 274 Palestinians and injured more than 400 to get 4 hostages. Gallant might be having different ideas, especially regarding the upcoming invasion of Lebanon.
Maybe something funny happens but more likely this is all a show to get out of having to actually invade Lebanon.
Can somebody provide me a basic timeline for the last 48 hours on the ME front? Israel declared war on or initialized something with Lebanon and then Tel Aviv was bombed?
President Zelensky has condemned the apparent assassination attempt.
He said political violence has no place anywhere. “I am glad to hear that Donald Trump is safe and unharmed. My best wishes to him and his family. It’s good that the suspect in the assassination attempt was apprehended quickly. This is our principle: the rule of law is paramount and political violence has no place anywhere in the world.” Zelensky wrote on X.