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Bulletins and News Discussion from March 31st to April 6th, 2025 - Magnitude 7.7 Earthquake Hits Mandalay

Image of destruction in Mandalay, Myanmar, from Al Jazeera.

As if the ongoing civil war wasn't enough, Myanmar has now been struck by a very powerful earthquake, resulting in 2000 deaths and thousands more injured as of the time of writing. Estimates are that the death toll could reach 10,000. Infrastructure like roads and bridges are damaged, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. The earthquake struck during Eid prayers, resulting in even higher casualties as several mosques collapsed. 20 million people already required humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, and now the situation there will be even worse. International rescue teams have rushed into the country, and aid is being raised, though with USAID experiencing the... changes that it is, the United States will be of even more limited help than usual. So far, China has sent $14 million, while USAID has supplied $2 million. In Thailand, the death toll seems considerably lower, though there has still been significant damage; a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.

Myanmar is located very close to the boundary between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In particular, the country is divided in two by the north-south oriented Sagaing fault. This fault is typically strike-slip; that is, each side of the fault moves horizontally past each other. The earthquake's depth was 10 kilometers, which is pretty shallow, and its proximity to the surface amplified the felt force of the earthquake. Additionally, the soft soil in this region tends to further amplify seismic waves through a process called liquefaction. Combine all this with the lackluster building codes due to many years of impoverishment and civil wars, and this explains why the death toll, and the expense to the country in general to repair damage, will probably be extremely high.

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979 comments

  • also, mini congrats to car-havers, oil is near 60 already, opec also decided to celebrate liberation day.

    mbs be like

    having solidarity with palestinians

    hating shale oil

  • The age/diversity gap between the "Hands Off" and pro-Palestine protestors in DC is really interesting.

    I recommend looking up images of both and comparing them. You would expect there to be some difference, but the reality is jaw-dropping.

  • US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 22nd night in a row, with four airstrikes reported in Saada Governorate, west of Saada city.

    More airstrikes, 5 reported at Kamaran Island.

    Horrific images coming out of Gaza now, yesterday the IDF announced the creation of a new "security corridor", the Morag corridor in Gaza. This corridor is set to separate Rafah from Khan Yunis. Artillery operations and airstrikes are underway to facilitate this, resulting in the leveling of buildings and mass civilian casualties.

    Statement from the Yemeni Armed Forces:

    Al Masirah TV twitter

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    More underground facilities and their entrances in Yemen are showing up with large areas of potential damage on satellite imagery. Some of these were struck previously as well, before the B-2 deployment.

    Twitter link to the latest images

    Xcancel mirror, scroll to the bottom if not working correctly

    Also some quick comments on the JASSM stealth cruise missiles that some news outlets say are being used in Yemen, and B-2 stealth bombers, after thinking about it last night. While it's true that the US Navy is not firing JASSMs from F-18s and there is no evidence to suggest such is happening, JASSMs could be fired from B-2s, for a "stealth standoff" capabilitiy. The B-2 is the only aircraft in the US fleet with stealth standoff capabilitiy, JASSMs don't fit in the internal weapons bays of F-35 aircraft, and F-22s are air superiority fighter aircraft. So along with the bunker buster capabilities of the GBU-57 MOP, stealth standoff is another unique capability that only the B-2 can bring to the US arsenal.

    Stealth standoff capabilitiy was actually first used in active combat by Russia in the 11 April 2024 attack on the Ukrainian Trypilska thermal power plant, using stealth Su-57 aircraft carrying stealth Kh-69 cruise missiles in it's internal weapons bays. If the B-2s are carrying out stealth standoff strikes in Yemen, that is complete overkill and not necessary. The most likely explanation would be live practice, for preparedness for future wars against Iran in the short term, and possibly China in the long term, where such a capability would be necessary.

  • Israel previously claimed that the ambulances "approached suspiciously" with their headlights and emergency lights off. Video proves otherwise.

  • Argentina's Senate rejected two names nominated by President Javier Milei to head the country's embassies in Spain and India, in a symbolic vote marked by criticism and embarrassment for the government. Marcela Pagano = MP nominated for the embassy in India. Gerardo Werthein = a businessman close to Milei, appointed to the embassy in Spain.

    Opposition senators and even allies argued that they lacked technical qualifications. The vote was symbolic and expressive: there was only one vote in favor, by Senator Bartolomé Abdala (government spokesman in the Senate).

    • Telegram

  • Argentine financial markets record setback after Milei's failed mission - MercoPress

    Argentine financial markets experienced a sharp decline Friday amid the global economic storm triggered by a trade war between the U.S. and China following President Donald Trump’s tariffs spree. The market downturn, compounded by a nearly 7% drop in oil prices and a 10-year U.S. rate at 3.87%, reflects fears of a global economic setback, prompting expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts.

    While the country risk index soared and Argentine stocks fell 12% on Wall Street, the S&P Merval of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange plummeted 7.4% to 2,107,815 points. Although the region's stock exchanges also fell, Buenos Aires' figures were by far the deepest, as the rest fell between 1 and 3%.

    These results also came after President Javier Milei's trip to the United States enhanced his socialite status during a conservative event at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. But contrary to Casa Rosada's expectations, Trump was late to the gathering. Therefore, Milei could not meet with him to insist on Argentina's need for a fresh International Monetary Fund disbursement.

    In addition, the White House Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone announced that the United States' support to the Libertarian administration before the IMF would hinge on Buenos Aires cutting all ties with Beijing, specifically the currency swap agreement brokered during the previous Government of Alberto Fernández and extended during the current one.

    Despite Milei’s ideological shift away from Beijing, China remains a vital economic partner for Argentina—its second-largest trading partner after Brazil—and is heavily involved in sectors like infrastructure, energy, and telecommunications. Ending the swap would require Argentina to repay a large sum it currently lacks.

    “I am not going to interfere in the middle of the negotiations that are taking place with the IMF, which we want to be successful,” Claver Carone was quoted as saying. “What we do want is that eventually the famous credit line that Argentina has with China ends,” he added.

    In the meantime, consensus has been reported to be absent among the IMF's board on an advance disbursement, despite positive remarks from Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

    Advancing money to Argentina, a practice known as frontloading, generates controversy because any financing for the country before its next principal payment to the IMF would be considered fresh funds, which would increase the multilateral's exposure to the nation, it was explained.

    This week's rejection by the Senate of Milei's two Supreme Court nominees, coupled with his rift with Vice President Victoria Villarruel and treason charges for his April 2 Malvinas/Falklands speech, portray a declining head of State badly in need of funding to keep his administration going.

  • What Trump did with the tariffs is very similar to what Modi did in 2016, quote from an article on it below. I thought shutting down USAID was thoughtless but this is much more significant.

    How can anybody be so indifferent to people’s suffering as the Modi government was in decreeing demonetisation? The answer lies in its desire for “shock and awe”, and the belief that the more people suffer, the more they would feel convinced that the government could not be inflicting so much suffering on them unless it was indeed serving some higher purpose. The combination of ignorance, arrogance and the desire for “shock and awe” on the part of a government can be quite lethal, as the Indian people have learned to their great cost.

    https://www.newsclick.in/demonetisation-been-utter-failure-all-fronts

  • Defense for Children International has received the autopsy of 17-year-old Palestinian-Brazilian dual national Walid Ahmad, the first child to die in Israeli prisons. Ahmad reportedly likely died from starvation, dehydration, and infections due to prolonged malnutrition and medical neglect.

  • US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 21st night in a row, with two airstrikes reported in Saada Governorate, around an area known to contain underground facilities, east of Saada city.

    Two statements by the Yemeni Armed Forces earlier today:

    No ballistic missiles at Israel, just a long range Sayyad one way attack drone, called 'Yaffa" for this operation. The Shark F360 drone is a mix of a quadcopter and winged drone, to allow for vertical takeoff and landing. It's a pretty small fully electric drone about 1.75m long, with a wingspan of 3.6m. Wonder how one got into Yemen in the first place. Mossad or CIA agents?

    The B-2s are operating in Yemen now, and we have uncensored satellite imagery of weapons loading taking place on the B-2s. I've updated my post on it here, with the uncensored imagery.

    Al Masirah TV twitter

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  • NYT: U.S. Strikes in Yemen Burning Through Munitions With Limited Success

    President Trump said this week that Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen have been “decimated by the relentless strikes” that he ordered beginning on March 15.

    But that’s not what Pentagon and military officials are privately telling Congress and allied countries.

    In closed briefings in recent days, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that there has been only limited success in destroying the Houthis’ vast, largely underground arsenal of missiles, drones and launchers, according to congressional aides and allies.

    The officials briefed on confidential damage assessments say the bombing is consistently heavier than strikes conducted by the Biden administration, and much bigger than what the Defense Department has publicly described.

    But Houthi fighters, known for their resiliency, have reinforced many of their bunkers and other targeted sites, frustrating the Americans’ ability to disrupt the militia’s missile attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea, according to three congressional and allied officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

    In just three weeks, the Pentagon has used $200 million worth of munitions, in addition to the immense operational and personnel costs to deploy two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses to the Middle East, the officials said.

    The total cost could be well over $1 billion by next week, and the Pentagon might soon need to request supplemental funds from Congress, one U.S. official said.

    So many precision munitions are being used, especially advanced long-range ones, that some Pentagon contingency planners are growing concerned about overall Navy stocks and implications for any situation in which the United States would have to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China.

    The U.S. strikes, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named Operation Rough Rider after the troops Theodore Roosevelt led in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, likely could continue for six months, officials said.

    A senior Pentagon official late Thursday pushed back on the assessments described by the congressional and allied officials.

    The senior official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said the airstrikes had exceeded their goal in the campaign’s initial phase, disrupting senior Houthi leaders’ ability to communicate, limiting the group’s response to a handful of ineffective counter strikes, and setting the conditions for subsequent phases, which he declined to discuss. “We’re on track,” the official said.

    Someone is lying here to the NYT about how this bombing campaign is actually going. Based on what @MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net has been reporting, specifically on the latest and greatest bunker busters being dropped from B-2s, I suspect it's Trump/Pentagon officials, but there's money and political implications to all of this. Depleting US munitions means more money for defense contractors. All I can say for sure is that Yemen continues to learn why Americans don't have healthcare.

  • An update on the bombings of the "Amad Tunnels" in Yemen. Satellite imagery has been released, showing a 100m/330ft+ long gash in a mountain in the Amad area. Only one aircraft in the US fleet carries a bomb big enough to make such a huge hole in a mountain, the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber with the GBU-57 MOP bomb. So B-2s are being used in Yemen now. This also explains the censored satellite imagery of the B-2s at Diego Garcia, they were being worked on for missions. Expect official confirmation soon from US news sources.

    Twitter link showing the satellite imagery

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    Image of the 100+m gash:

    How the site usually looks like on Google Maps, the gash would be just below the pin. You can also see the tunnel entrances along the main road:

    Attempt to provide a measurement for context:

    Official confirmation just in from CNN. Abdul Malik al-Houthi (the leader of the Ansarallah/Houthi movement) also commented on the use of B-2s in his latest speech.

    B-2 bombers out of Diego Garcia are also being used against the Houthis, and an additional aircraft carrier as well as several fighter squadrons and air defense systems will soon be moved into the Central Command region, defense officials said this week.

    The CNN article makes an error in munitions use though, the US Navy is using SLAM-ER cruise missiles, not JASSM cruise missiles.

    More confirmation: the uncensored satellite imagery of the B-2s at Diego Garcia has been released, weapons loading in progress:

    Given that the bombing of the Amad Tunnels took place on the morning of April 1st, Rybar were correct in their statement about B-2 bombers being used in Yemen.

    Just checked, Rybar said the bombings tool place during March 29-30, a bit early.

    In assessing the military impact of the US campaign, I'd say that the US has stopped Ansarallah from launching ballistic missiles at Israel for now, countered the unmanned aerial systems (cruise missiles and drones) threat with new weaponry and tactics, and suppressed their air defences to some extent, but Ansarallah are still able to shoot down slow flying drones like the MQ-9 Reaper, and Anti Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) capability appears to remain intact, given that the US Navy Carrier Strike Group is not coming within 700km of Yemen. As long as Ansarallah have ASBM capability, they can blockade the Red Sea. This a key capability that Ansarallah cannot allow to be degraded or lost. It's the backbone of their ability to carry out naval blockades. Ansarallah are set to unveil a new variant of their "Red Sea" missile based off of Iranian artillery rockets (so around 140km range) just for this purpose.

    All in all this is another warning shot to Iran, the US just put a 400ft long crater in a mountainous bunker in Yemen. The GBU-57 MOP is a serious threat to underground facilities. I did a post on it here.

  • Flight attendants on how deportees were treated on deportation flights
    https://xcancel.com/propublica/status/1907599803531546650

    THREAD: Last year, ProPublica started receiving tips from an unusual kind of source: flight attendants.

    They said they'd worked on deportation flights for ICE, and they could tell us what it was really like on board.

    Most of the flight attendants hadn't knowingly signed up to help deport people. When they took their jobs, they’d expected to fly VIPs to glamorous locales.

    Then the airline started working for ICE, and many or most of their passengers were detainees, people in chains.

    We spoke with 7 current and former Global Crossing Airlines crew members. Their accounts were consistent with one another and aligned with what’s in legal filings and other records about ICE Air—important because neither GlobalX nor ICE answered any of ProPublica's questions.

    The flight attendants’ training classes hadn't prepared them for this, they told us.

    One flight attendant said: “They never taught us anything regarding the immigration flights... They didn’t tell us these people were going to be shackled, wrists to fucking ankles.”

    The flight attendants said there were new rules to follow, though:

    •Don’t talk to the detainees.
    •Don’t feed them.
    •Don’t make eye contact.
    •Don’t walk down the aisles without a guard escorting you.
    •Don’t sit in aisle seats, where detainees could get close to you.

    One flight attendant described needing to give emergency oxygen to a little girl traveling with her parents on a deportation flight. The girl had collapsed with low oxygen saturation and a high fever, and the flight was diverted back to the US. But when paramedics rushed on only the mom was allowed to join the little girl as they took her to the hospital, the flight attendant said.

    The flight attendant said the dad had to stay, and that he was going to be deported without the rest of his family, without knowing if his daughter would live.

    Three flight attendants said they did get some rare guidance on how to run evacuations on deportation flights from ICE Air pilots.

    “Just get up and leave” after you open the exit door, one recalls a pilot telling him. “That’s it... Save your life first."

    “It was as if the detainees’ lives were worthless,” another said.

    The flight attendants who spoke with ProPublica believed those lives were not worthless. That, many of them said, is why they no longer fly for ICE Air—and why they shared their stories.

    Though we didn’t hear from GlobalX, then-CEO Ed Wegel did address deportation flights in 2023.

    “In the time that we've been flying, we've not seen any inhumane treatment,” he said. "There have been threats made to our crew members...But we haven't seen any mistreatment at all.”

979 comments