Bulletins and News Discussion from April 1st to April 7th, 2024 - The Heydey of Juche - COTW: Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Bulletins and News Discussion from April 1st to April 7th, 2024 - The Heydey of Juche - COTW: Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Image is from this CNN article.
The DPRK's history has been a rollercoaster, with admirable highs and heartbreaking lows, most notably the Korean War and the fall of the USSR. Its steadfast commitment to Juche, a variant of Marxism-Leninism that focuses on self-sufficiency, has both made the DPRK a target for imperialist genocidal powers, and allowed them to survive these attacks.
Lately, we seem to be seeing a transition from surviving to thriving. China and the DPRK have always had a much more complicated history than Western education and media allows its population to know, with periods of quite strong disagreement - it's not the case that China is somehow the DPRK's master. Russia is the DPRK's other neighour that isn't US-occupied, and while they obviously differ substantially in ideology since the USSR fell, the tsunami of sanctions on Russia has changed things. The stick has been removed from the equation, with Russia facing no possible punishment from the West because they were unable to enact sanctions effectively and used all their ammunition in the first few barrages rather than turning the screws over time (I don't care if we're on the 14th sanctions package, it's all been meaningless for Russia since the end of 2022).
The carrot is also more visible, with an alliance making a lot of sense for both. Once again, Western education and media would have you believe a Parenti-esque reality in which Korea is a massive and unpredictable danger to the world, but is simultaneously so poor and destitute that their artillery pieces are made of wood and their missiles out of paper-mache. The truth is that Korea has innovated greatly in missile technology, with some of their weapons matching or even exceeding those of the Russians, hence the Russians' use of them in Ukraine. Russia also finds it advantageous to invest in Korea to strengthen the anti-hegemonic alliance's presence in the Pacific, countering the US-occupied lower half of the peninsula who has naturally sided with Ukraine. Additionally, Russia is investing deeply in the Arctic sea route. This will open up as climate change continues; is naturally quite defensible for Russia so long as Korea is there to provide further defense at its eastern edge; and is both a faster and safer route for Russia to access China - especially in a world where straits can be blockaded by even impoverished yet determined countries like Yemen. The situation in the Red Sea benefits Russia and China now, but in the coming years, the US may apply the same lesson for their own benefit elsewhere.
It is perhaps this new sense of self-confidence that has let Korea give up on reunification with its lower half via peaceful measures. A new Korean War would be devastating for both sides even if it remained non-nuclear, but with a rising DPRK and with the South falling yet further into hypercapitalist exploitation and misery, and a US that remains non-committal to its "allies" when times get difficult (as in Ukraine and Europe), a reality where Korea may finally hold the upper hand and have the ability to liberate its south may be approaching in the years and decades to come.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is *the DPRK! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Fast food chains are using algorithms to cooperatively fix prices
Hotel chains are using algorithms to cooperatively fix prices
Meat processors are using algorithms to cooperatively fix prices
Landlords are using algorithms to cooperatively coordinate rent increases
Amazon is using an algorithm to specifically coordinate cooperative price rises with Target
The current era of inflation is due to capitalist GOSPLANning.
GUANGZHOU, China, April 4 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrived in China's southern factory hub of Guangzhou on Thursday with a tough message to Chinese officials: you're producing too much of everything, especially clean energy goods, and the world can't absorb it.
China is unleashing a flood of electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, solar panels, semiconductors and other manufactured goods into global markets, the result of years of massive government subsidies and weak demand at home. Global prices for many goods are tanking, pressuring producers in other countries.
lmao
English summary of the Biden-Xi phone call
If the U.S. side is willing to seek mutually beneficial cooperation and share in China’s development dividends, it will always find China’s door open; but if it is adamant on containing China’s hi-tech development and depriving China of its legitimate right to development, China is not going to sit back and watch.
ngl feeling pretty traumatised by 6 months of watching a genocide play out in detail while the entire state and bourgeois ideological apparatus tries to gaslight us into believing literally anything but the truth. nothing compared to what the Palestinian people are going through ofc but it's really done awful things for me to hear and see dreadful atrocities being perpetrated every single day for months.
Remembering when an Iranian cleric on live television said that the only reason Iran would struggle getting payback against America for assasinating Soleimani is because America has no heroes.
"Think about it, are we supposed to take out Spiderman and SpongeBob? They don't have any heroes. We have a country in front of us with a large population and a large land mass, but it doesn't have any heroes, all of their heroes are cartoon characters, they're all fictional."
The US-backed zionazis bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Addendum: this constitutes an attack on Iranian territory because it is part of the diplomatic mission of Iran. This is not a normal attack.
the 'Israeli' aggression led to the destruction of the entire Iranian consulate building and the martyrdom and injury of everyone inside it.
In case anyone was wondering why the US just sent their outpost twenty five F-35's, the answer is clear. They don't need stealth jets to attack Gaza. They need stealth jets to carry out an air campaign on Lebanon and Syria because Hezbollah and the Syrian Arab Army have modern air-defenses.
This regional war will escalate much more before it calms down.
Reading about the JDAM/F-35 sales at the same time reading about what they are uncovering at Al-Shifa.
God damn America. I no longer give a single rip about any domestic policy in this evil country. I don’t care about Trump vs Biden; whatever infinitesimally small advantage Biden may have in domestic policy is completely irrelevant. Saying this as an American with kids.
I hope myself, my family, my comrades, and all marginalized people are spared in the future. But the reality is that America deserves hell on earth. There were many good people, working class people who died in the WTC on 9/11; they did not deserve it but America absolutely deserved it. And 9/11 doesn’t even represent a small down payment on what America actually deserves.
Death to America and death to “israel”.
The details are emerging on the IDF strike that killed the World Central Kitchen aid workers, including American/British/Australian/Polish citizens, and it is (unsurprisingly) extremely clear it was (yet another) very specifically targeted assassination. I'll post the thread below, but the info comes from Haaretz here.
The IDF's early explanation re the killing of the World Central Kitchen team is in - per "security sources" speaking to Haaretz. Before we get to the putative pretext for the attack, they also disclose a harrowing detail - the drone bombed the convoy THREE TIMES in succession..
because team survived one hit and tried taking cover in another vehicle, and then survivors moved to a third - and were finished off there. Deliberate, repeated targeting of convoy, making sure no one was left alive. And this actually doesn't stack up w the alleged pretext:
"According to sources acquainted with the details of the incident, the Operation Room in charge of securing the route identified an armed person on the truck and suspected this was a terrorist. By the time preparations were made for the attack, the truck arrived....
at the warehouse, together with the three WKC vehicles carrying seven volunteers... minutes later, the three vehicles left the warehouse, without the truck on which an armed person was allegedly sighted. The cars traveled on a route already confirmed to WKC by the IDF. The IDF
was also made aware of the timing of this particular convoy. At some point, while convoy was traveling on the authorised route, the Operations Room ordered the drone operator to strike one of the vehicles. Some passengers were seen leaving the stricken vehicle and moving...
to the other two. They had time to alert superiors they had been attacked, but seconds later were struck by a second missile. They began moving wounded to 3rd car, and that's when the 3rd missile hit. All seven volunteers were killed." This is actually far worse than I imagined.
The first and last vehicle targeted were over 2km apart:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/german-jewish-voice-peace-bank-account-blocked-berlin-bank
Berliner Sparkasse Bank demanded that Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East disclose list of members, including addresses
"Ja, bitte release the names and addresses of ze members of zis Juden organisation, its for your own protection of course, we must fight against anti-semitism"
Background info on the Vietnamese president who just recently got purged. The tl;dr is that he's a liberal worm who tried to undermine Vietnam from within:
https://nitter.poast.org/darrion_nguyen/status/1776809036123672765Traore is looking to be Sankara reincarnated and the Sahel alliance might become a pan African union with how its looking
good things coming from africa
also with the EFF rising to 3rd largest party in South Africa, the future of african socialism looks to be very very bright
I'm a bloomer today comrades
Israel has just re-opened the Beit Hanoun/Erez crossing for the first time since 7 October. As repeatedly noted, Israel is so utterly dependent on the US it literally takes just one phone call to reverse Israeli policy 180 degrees.
https://x.com/MouinRabbani/status/1776023464056443122
a couple white aid workers died, Biden makes a phone call, and like magic they're opening the border and allowing more aid in
CW:torture
After clearing them of terrorism charges they're just dropped back off in Gaza.
Absolutely sick reading this, it's basically a medical torture camp.
‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all.
Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.
In addition, according to the sources, when it came to targeting alleged junior militants marked by Lavender, the army preferred to only use unguided missiles, commonly known as “dumb” bombs (in contrast to “smart” precision bombs), which can destroy entire buildings on top of their occupants and cause significant casualties. “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people — it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs],” said C., one of the intelligence officers. Another source said that they had personally authorized the bombing of “hundreds” of private homes of alleged junior operatives marked by Lavender, with many of these attacks killing civilians and entire families as “collateral damage.”
In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians; in the past, the military did not authorize any “collateral damage” during assassinations of low-ranking militants. The sources added that, in the event that the target was a senior Hamas official with the rank of battalion or brigade commander, the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.
I actually think I'm going to throw up
Apartheid in South Africa ended with a one state solution where Blacks and Whites are equal citizens under shared government. Why should there be any difference for Palestine, especially now that Israel has destroyed most of Palestine's infrastructure. Israelis owe Palestinians generations worth of reparations. Wouldn't an endorsement for two-state solution be an endorsement for a literal ethnostate?
Went to uni with a guy who was both an outspoken communist and an even more outspoken zionist (only in germany
)I checked his twitter shortly after October 7th and he was doing hasbara like a good little doggy, ticking all the boxes.
Checked his twitter again last week and his tweets are now protected. Aww, were people mean to you cause you defended the fucking Nazis?
Found an article on CNN dated April 14, 2022 - so that's about 50 days after Russia began the SMO. I'll just paste the headline and the first few sentences, that's what matters:
Biden calls atrocities in Ukraine a ‘genocide’ for the first time
President Joe Biden said Tuesday the atrocities being uncovered in Ukraine qualify as genocide, a designation he’d previously avoided but that he now believes is warranted as scenes of devastation emerge from towns once overrun by Russian troops.
“I called it genocide because it’s become clearer and clearer that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is just trying to wipe out even the idea of being Ukrainian. The evidence is mounting,” Biden told reporters in Iowa after using the term earlier in a speech.
“It’s different than it was last week, the more evidence that’s coming out,” he continued. “Literally, the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine – and we’re going to only learn more and more about the devastation.”
“We’ll let the lawyers decide, internationally, whether or not it qualifies,” he concluded, “but it sure seems that way to me.”
The Genocider-in-Chief couldn't wait two whole months to declare that Russia was committing a broad genocide. He won't even condemn Israel much less say it's a genocide. Russia, on the other hand, gets that label with nary any actual evidence.
McDonald's is buying all of its restaurants back from the Israeli franchise owner due to the negative impact of the boycott of McDonald's on its Middle East revenue. McDonalds missed it's revenue target for the first time in 4 years because of the boycott.
I'm not sure if it was mentioned in the last thread, but I thought it was worth including small but bright spot of recent good news from TERF Island:
Palestine Action activists have officially managed to permanently shut down another Elbit factory (a targeting & weapons component manufacturer who sell to Israel) after a sustained campaign of blockades, occupation, and damage.
The company blamed a massive increase in security costs, resulting from the actions.
The factory is now owned by a new company who stress that they do not contribute to military or arms manufacturing projects. Another one down.
Major new article from 972 mag. Israel is using an AI bot to identify and target Hamas. This is apparently how they came up with the 37k Hamas number. The AI's list was apparently treated as an order, with the only oversight being to check if the target was male.
Perhaps more significantly, Israel had/has also given full permission to bomb suspects in their homes. The number of acceptable civilian casualties per strike is 20.
I still cant get over that Amerikkka is clearly trying to pit Vietnam against China and globe emojis LOVES to talk about how Vietnam loves America only for Joe Biden to state "we must get our POWs back!", in that national vietnam veteran day or something.
National Vietnam Veteran Day? More like Loser Cope Day.
Doomer take: Biden has opened the Pandora’s box where the interests of American capital are now directly tied to de-stabilization from global geopolitical conflicts.
We know all this already: Inflation and high interest rates are sucking in international capital from abroad. Stock market is at an all time high. Oil and gas, military industrial complex, financial institutions raking in excessive profits from the war in Europe. Billions of aid money to Ukraine and Israel that are being laundered back to cronies.
There is no going back from here. Let’s say Trump, or someone else, succeeded Biden as the president, how will they ever convince that they can also deliver the same amount of treats to the American capitalist class, but without stoking wars and conflicts across the world?
This is all the American empire can do right now. Causing chaos everywhere. It has fully transformed itself into a landlord empire, and Biden has found a way to turn on a giant vacuum hose that sucks in global capital to slow the empire from undergoing its own decline. It seems more and more likely the conditions that will eventually spark WWIII are becoming ripe as this decade unfolds.
I've been running into more Chinaboos lately. They treat China the same way weebs treat Japan. Saying random Chinese phrases they learned from Chinese films, lusting after Chinese men and women, talking about how badly they want to move there, and talking about how they're living in the future. It's weird to see from someone who grew up in a time when Japan was getting all the attention and anything Chinese was deemed uncool or cheap.
They're largely leftists but a good number of normies have also been doing this, most of them being younger.
Analysis of World Central Kitchen's broader role in Gaza:
https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/1775112575006511404Statement from World Central Kitchen saying that they will halt operations in Gaza:
https://wck.org/news/gaza-team-updateThis is completely by design. The IOF assassinated them in order to:
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Create a chilling effect on aid workers to the point where aid workers will refuse to go to Gaza
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Wage psychological warfare against the Palestinians in order to demoralize and destroy their resolve to fight
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Milei ends a press conference where he announced that he's giving the USA a naval base in Argentina by screeching his stupid ass catchphrase. No one else joins in, the US ambassador laughs at him, and he leaves the stage to no applause.
Reddit president
A man was arrested today in Casa Rosada (literally Argentina's White House) after he tried to enter the building armed with a machete while claiming "I am God, and I am going to kill the President".
Also he will meet tomorrow with the commander of the United States Southern Command, General Laura Richardson. Imperialism done with a lady in charge, feelin' the future and the inclusiveness here!
The Israeli Agricultural Industry: A Strategic Weakness
Excellently researched article. I shared only the conclusion below.
The structural change in the Israeli agricultural industry not only affected the composition of workers in the industry but also had repercussions on food policy in the entity, which became more reliant on importing foodstuffs. This was due to the slowdown of growth of the agricultural industry, which coincided with a significant expansion in the population, compounded by the political desire to lower prices, which opened the door to imports [11].
As mentioned earlier, the slow growth of the industry in the 1980s was the result of inflationary recession factors that affected the Israeli economy during that period, coupled with the neoliberal policies followed by Israeli governments since the late 1970s, which reduced the amount of government support for agriculture. Consequently, population growth, over time, became faster than agricultural production growth. In the 1950s, the annual growth rate of production was about 12.8%, compared to a population growth rate of 4.6%. However, this dynamic shifted in the 1990s, the decade when population growth surpassed agricultural production growth, remaining so until now, with the former reaching 2.8% while the latter reached 2% [12]. This led to dependence on food imports to meet the increasing local demand. The result was that the entity became completely dependent on imports of sugar, vegetable oils, oilseeds, animal feed, and grains [13]. Moreover, domestic production of animal products relies on imports of feed and live animals.
This coincided with the neoliberal transformation in the Israeli economy, where the focus in the 1990s shifted towards high-value industries, especially the technology industry. Even agriculture took a significant share of this industry, with a focus on developing agricultural technology surpassing interest in agricultural production itself. At this stage, Israel chose the neoliberal model based on export orientation. The purpose of this policy was to improve the current account balance—reducing the deficit or increasing the surplus—attracting foreign direct investment, reducing external debt, and building foreign currency reserves by the central bank [14]. In contrast, other industries, including agriculture, saw declining growth rates, and their products lost competitiveness, even in domestic markets, due to the high production costs.
It is not sustainable to be a First World Country—meaning a country with an economy focused on high-value production while abandoning quantitative production, especially concerning basic goods like food—in a hostile region that does not accept you. No matter how significant Western support may be, there are economic rules in the real-world economy that cannot be bypassed or ignored. Consumers need consumer goods, and herein lies the strategic mistake committed by the Israeli entity during the formation stage of its modern economy, specifically after the neoliberal transformation it underwent in the late 1980s. Under export-oriented neoliberalism, the focus shifted to enhancing the economy’s status on the international stage. In this context, “Israel” was able to achieve its goal. However, it simultaneously relinquished a crucial aspect of its security, which is food security.
Amidst the brutal war that “Israel” is waging against the people of Gaza, other fronts have opened up. The attacks carried out by Yemen in the Red Sea imposing a blockade on Israeli ports from the early weeks of the ongoing war have proven that the anti-Israel camp is capable of reducing its ability to import. This poses an even larger problem in the event of a broader regional war. While today only the port of Eilat is affected by the blockade in the Red Sea, the situation could worsen if a war threatens other Israeli ports, especially those located on the Mediterranean Sea. This could trigger a food security crisis in “Israel,” which abandoned a fundamental element of its survival amidst the transition to neoliberalism.
‘Simply mind-boggling’: world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe
An unprecedented leap of 38.5C in the coldest place on Earth is a harbinger of a disaster for humans and the local ecosystem
"Terrifying horrors and atrocities in the al-Shifa complex. They buried people alive, tied up and executed the injured, buried dozens of wounded and trampled them with tank treads and bulldozers, they destroyed hundreds of houses with their residents inside in the vicinity of the hospital. They changed the face of the region... Dear Lord"
José Andrés Says Israel Targeted World Central Kitchen Workers ‘Systematically.’ "This was not just a bad luck situation where ‘oops’ we dropped the bomb in the wrong place," the group's founder said in an interview on Wednesday.
This is pretty big. Andrés is an uber-lib, like the Pod Save varieties. He's done a lot of charity stuff that he gets PR for, but he's tight with the Clintons and Obamas and has, of course, been accused of stealing tips, advocating against workers, and working with ICE.
This very well could be a breaking point for the petit-bourgeois lib.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61545
The US is the largest oil producer in the world, cracking the Russian and KSA records in 2018 and exceeding their production by a comfortable margin now. Up from a recent low of 5 million barrels per day in 2008 to 13 million barrels per day now.
Definitely a Thanks Obama moment. I recall when that asshole talked about this being the moment that sea levels would stop rising when he won the primary in 2008. 8 years later, US oil production was just about double to 9 M barrels/day. That fucking asshole.
The US has become a much more significant oil exporter now too, especially since 2022.
See also the American consternation about Chinese green tech, eroding the world demand for oil.
Summary of why IOF intelligence failed to thwart October 7th from their perspective:
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https://twitter.com/revolutionaryem/status/1774649149981700572
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https://twitter.com/revolutionaryem/status/1774649163378221493
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https://twitter.com/revolutionaryem/status/1774649170684735551
Highlights:
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Hamas intelligence was able to log in to the Israeli webcams because they didn't bother changing the original manufacturer password that came with the webcams.
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Hamas intelligence also catfished horny IOF dudes and got them to install spyware on their phones on top of just general opsec breaches.
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The article constantly copes about Hamas intelligence capabilities "not being that good but merely adequate acktually."
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There's also a bunch of malding about Tiktok.
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Where are the British politicians saying that Israel has the right to kill British citizens? If they don't assert that right, they're being anti-semitic
Biden when the IOF murders tens of thousands of Palestinians:
A ceasefire is out of the question Jack.Biden when the IOF murders seven workers from a Western NGO:
Biden demands Netanyahu accept ‘immediate ceasefire’BBC just did a hit piece on some anti hate speech legislation that scotland's introducing because it included trans people in it and then a puff piece on JK Rowling with some TERF they invited on to praise her for what a good job she did standing up to the "militant trans authoritarians who are threatening biological women's freedom of speech" (
). They've talked about this three times in the last hour and a half and notably havent interviewed any trans person or anyone else covered by the new legislation and only a sentence of airtime each time to one of the bill's backers in scottish parliament but they've given a load of time to JK Rowling and the head of some Scottish TERF organisation.Also some labour party members in lancashire are splitting from the party over its suppression of criticism of Israel and are running as independents instead. The BBC is currently trying to smear them as antisemites on the radio.
Last month's news: editorial from The Gazette https://archive.is/g3ajP, article from NYT https://archive.is/tPrps
'NEW Cooperative', USAmerican farming company dumps 265000 gallons (1,000,000 liters) of liquid nitrogen into a tributary of a major river, killing 789,000+ fish. Ecosystem has been pretty much destroyed, and a biologist says it will take decades for it to recover (New York Times). The company was fined $6,000
. The state government has a maximum fine of $10,000 it is allowed to charge without going to court (The Gazetta).China de-orbits a satellite into the middle of the ocean, Reddit reaction:
FUCKING BACKWARDS CHINESE FAKE SPACE PROGRAM INTERNATIONAL THREATNASA kicks a battery pallet off the ISS and the part of it that doesn't burn up actually hits a house in Florida, Reddit reaction: heckin big chungus battery throwing American heroes!
Isntreal just murdered a bunch of foreign national NGO and UN workers, wonder if these countries will even feign outrage or go straight to calling the dead anti-semitic for making Isntreal look bad
Fucking annoyed, comrades. In my local vegan group, some reactionary said some bigoted shit in the chat. Pls let me not doxx myself and give too much info, but it was something that would get an immediate ban from Hexbear or any progressive subreddit.
The admin DM'd me. "I know that you're passionate about [oppressed marginalised group], but can you delete your comment". The guy fucked posted literal pages in his defense of saying bigoted shit, but I posted 8 words calmly saying that it wasn't cool. The vibe I'm getting is that the admin is fine with it and probably secretly on his side.
The thing is, everyone hates this guy. Outside of his terrible opinions, he's a massive knobhead, and he's very unfun to hang out with. Women hate him because he's a creep. He's not worth defending.
Edit: maybe it's easy to ignore my opinion because I'm a tankie, but this is 1990's bigotry, not the secret 5D racism that Fascists used to have to deploy to get past Twitter bans.
Not content with methodically murdering their journalists,
is passing a law to criminalise Al Jazeera as a "terrorist" news network and stop it's transmission entirely. "Civilians in Gaza are the shield of Hamas, the shield of the descendants of Jew gassers" - Descendants of Jew gassers
https://nitter.poast.org/Ruairi_Casey/status/1776199576661164182
What's up nerds and losers, I'm meeting Grover Furr and some representatives from the People's Democracy Party of South Korea, who are progressives and not communists because it's illegal to be an organized communist party in South Korea, and some other neat people from around the globe tomorrow.
If you got any questions you want me to ask any of them, let me know.
The former vice president of Ecuador, Jorge Glas, is transferred to the maximum security prison 'La Roca' in Guayaquil. Glas was arrested last night at the Mexican embassy in Quito, in flagrant violation of international law and Mexican sovereignty and in violation of Article 22 of the Vienna Convention, which states that diplomatic headquarters cannot be broken into.
Biden 'outraged' by Israeli strike that killed aid workers in Gaza
"This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed," Biden said in a statement. "This is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult — because Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians.
Biden knowingly provided unconditional military and political support for the Nazis in israel as they spent almost 6 months slaughtering innocent Palestinians (which the WH administration expressed concern about as soon as October 11th), killing record numbers of journalists and aid workers in the process, and now he feigns '"outrage" on day 180, days after he rushed to send the Nazis billions more in bombs and jets.
Permanently Deleted
Moon of Alabama is writing about how the Ukrainian armed forces are running out of armoured vehicles.
One sign of how bad it is is how mechanised brigades are being reorganized as regular infantry. Another sign is the ratio of armoured to unarmoured vehicles being reported destroyed in Russian MoD briefings:
In the first year of the war the Ukrainian army often lost more armored vehicles per day than general vehicles, i.e. trucks. By mid 2023 the numbers of armored vehicle and trucks destroyed per day, as reported by the MoD, were about equal. By the end of 2023 that ratio was on average two trucks per one armored vehicle. It has since increased further. Yesterday's report claimed 32 destroyed Ukrainian trucks but only 4 destroyed armored vehicles.
Ukraine is fucked.
Earlier this week, I mentioned how the WCK strike is breaking down some barriers in a way that everything else hasn't because "Jose Andres is big with the Pod Jons set". I saw something today in FT that I think provides some good background on the cachet he holds among the freaks in DC :
The latest incident has also affected Joe Biden in a way earlier ones did not. Put simply, Andrés is a Washington celebrity. He was one of the pioneers of high-quality restaurants in an early 1990s Washington that had a well-deserved reputation for dowdy food. Andrés’s Jaleo introduced Spanish-style tapas food to America’s capital. In 2016, his restaurant, Minibar, was one of Washington’s first batch to merit a two-star Michelin award. Among others, Nancy Pelosi, the former US Speaker, has nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. When I spoke to Andrés during the pandemic, he was keeping dozens of local restaurants alive by ordering food deliveries from them to supply homeless shelters, hospital staff and other essential workers. From the front lines of war-torn Ukraine, to the devastation of natural disasters around the world, Andrés’s WCK has become a global Good Samaritan like no other.
Pretty frustrating that it takes someone drone striking the employees of the head chef of your favorite restaurant to make these freaks reassess wtf is going on, but I will take it.
Full FT Blog post
One of the few high points for me of Washington’s grim pandemic lockdown in spring 2020 was a Lunch with the FT I did with José Andrés. Because of the rules, we had to do it on Zoom. But even that had its upside. The Spanish chef, and world-renowned humanitarian, was eating at one of his outlets in Virginia Beach; I was sitting in my home office with Mexican food from one of his “pop-up” restaurants. At the end of our session, I asked what his greeting-and-goodbye rule was during the age of coronavirus. At the time, people were annoyingly clinking elbows, which struck me as precisely the wrong sneeze-ridden part of the body to be using. Andrés stood up, straightened himself, stared into the camera, then pounded his barrel chest, shouting, “I give you my heart! I give you my heart!” From almost anyone else, Andrés theatrical gesture would have come across as contrived. From him, however, it was utterly sincere. Very few people give their hearts to the extent that Andrés does.
I have been thinking a lot about him, as have so many others, after seven of his colleagues — what he calls “angels” — were killed in three Israeli drone strikes earlier this week. Since last October, Andrés’s World Central Kitchen has supplied 43mn meals to Palestinians trapped in that enclave, which is almost 20 meals per person. I don’t have a complete list, but I would not be surprised if this exceeds all other non-governmental organisations combined. Either way it is a safe bet that only UNRWA, boycotted by Israel and now the US, would have supplied more food to the Gaza strip than WCK. It is because of that largesse, and Andrés’s now global reputation, that the world has reacted more emotionally to the death of his colleagues than it has to the roughly 200 aid workers who have died in the Gaza Strip in the past few months. None of them should have died. Each was risking their life to keep the innocent living. The fact that some Hamas fighters are doubtless also being fed is both unavoidable, and also why Israel has been dragging its feet on allowing more aid to go in.
The latest incident has also affected Joe Biden in a way earlier ones did not. Put simply, Andrés is a Washington celebrity. He was one of the pioneers of high-quality restaurants in an early 1990s Washington that had a well-deserved reputation for dowdy food. Andrés’s Jaleo introduced Spanish-style tapas food to America’s capital. In 2016, his restaurant, Minibar, was one of Washington’s first batch to merit a two-star Michelin award. Among others, Nancy Pelosi, the former US Speaker, has nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. When I spoke to Andrés during the pandemic, he was keeping dozens of local restaurants alive by ordering food deliveries from them to supply homeless shelters, hospital staff and other essential workers. From the front lines of war-torn Ukraine, to the devastation of natural disasters around the world, Andrés’s WCK has become a global Good Samaritan like no other.
For an insight into Andrés’s philosophy and broken heart, read what he wrote this week in the New York Times:
“I have been a stranger at Seder dinners. I have heard the ancient Passover stories about being a stranger in the land of Egypt, the commandment to remember — with a feast before you — that the children of Israel were once slaves,” he wrote. “It is not a sign of weakness to feed strangers; it is a sign of strength. The people of Israel need to remember, at this darkest hour, what strength truly looks like.”
Will this be enough to prompt Biden to take action against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government? I do not know. Over the past few months, the periodic White House “leaks” about how Biden is getting really frustrated, and his patience is close to snapping, have become almost self-parodying. They remind me of the movie Team America: World Police caricature of the UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, threatening to write a “strongly-worded letter” unless North Korea gave up its weapons of mass destruction.
At some point, the pressure on Israel and Biden to change the way it is fighting this war has to become decisive. But not yet it seems. For my question this week, I am turned to the renowned Israeli journalist, Noga Tarnopolsky. Noga, you are based in Jerusalem. I know you’ve been holding your breath since October 7 and you are struggling to see a way out of this morass. Could the WCK deaths have some impact on Israeli public opinion?
Didn't know Biden was a posadist
It seems that the place where the foreign nationals died in Gaza is very near to where the stupid pier project is supposed to go.
That and 240 tons of aid have now gone back and aren't going to Gaza due to the death of those foreign nationals.
This is horseshoe theory, right?
It's funny how quickly zionists give the game away when encountering the slightest reprimand.
For context, the tweet author writes for Town Hall and the person reposting it is one of the most depraved and insufferable hasbara accounts on Twitter.
Old but gold of IOF goons getting owned by a flag rigged with explosives. This is why they resort to using robots to take down flags:
https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_/status/1774568740086075726I feel like I don't know enough about the background to understand the current Mexico-Ecuador crisis.
What made the Ecuadorean regime so angry at the former vice president that made them accept the blowback for violating one of the most basic norms of international politics? Why were Mexico granting him asylum in the first place? And what is the underlying tensions between Mexico and Ecuador that enabled the situation to escalate this far?
🇾🇪 Yemeni Armed Forces announces that it targeted British container ship Hope Island in the Red Sea, as well as two Israeli ships headed to Israeli ports — MSC Gina and MSC Grace F with a number of missiles.
Mexico will have the largest elections in its history on June 2, when over 97 million citizens are called to renew 20,375 federal positions.
On Monday afternoon, armed men murdered Bertha Gaytan, candidate of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) for the Mayor of Celeya.
This occurred in San Miguel Octopan, where she was leading her first campaign rally and was presenting her proposals to improve public safety. The attack also left three people injured.
"I firmly condemn this inhuman act and reiterate all my commitment so that the state coordinates the efforts of all levels of Government in the electoral processes and thus, those who participate in them have the protection that is necessary," said Diego Sinhue, the governor of the state of Guanajuato.
"The cowardly attack that took the life of candidate Bertha Gaytan will not go unpunished. My deepest condolences to her family," he added.
On Sunday, Alda Pacheco, the candidate for federal representative of the Citizen Movement party, reported having been the victim of an attack while she was traveling on the highway that connects the municipalities of Cortázar and Jaral del Progreso. However, the attack did not involve shots or injuries.
Celaya is the third most populated city in Guanajuato and is located in Laja–Bajio, one of the most violent areas of Mexico. Currently, This city is governed by Javier Mendoza, who is seeking reelection with the National Action Party (PAN).
Although there is no official record of political murders, the Data Cívica organization maintains that at least 10 candidates were murdered in the first two months of 2024. Political violence, however, could be greater given that 36 homicides of public officials and politicians' relatives were recorded in February.
Mexico will have the largest elections in its history on June 2, when over 97 million citizens are called to renew 20,375 federal positions, 9 state governments, 500 legislators and 128 senators.
Jacob Flickinger is the American/Canadian (dual citizen) who was working with the WCK who was murdered by the IOF.
If you look at a picture of him, he was a big white dude who looks exactly what chuds think of as an “operator”. He also had a one year old son.
I’ve been wondering if we should try and signal boost Jacob to Americans. I mean, he’s a hero, no doubt. But would your typical white American care more about what’s happening in Gaza if they see a guy like Jacob was murdered? Almost certainly, yes.
It’s awful that that’s the reality, but it is what it is. Feels gross to sort of count on white Americans’ racism, notions of “manliness”, putting parents on a pedestal, etc… but honestly I don’t really care about the ethics of it. I just want the genocide to stop. If that means using a judo move on white Americans’ reactionary views, idk i guess that’s fine so long as it gets the job done. But I am also a white American so if my comrades say I’m in the wrong here I’ll defer and retract.
Deranged Zionists mock the bodies of the World Central Kitchen aid workers (CW: dead bodies):
https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1775162156792631334The blood thirst from the armchair Nazis is unbelievable
Heads up, the IOF has razed Al-Shifa hospital to the ground. And there are bodies everywhere.
Lmao
Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to "roam free" in Germany in public dispute over trophy hunting
There was an article I read a while ago explaining how the US not only stopped Japan from expelling or significantly scaling down US troops from the base in Okinawa, but also forced Japan to pay for their base in Guam. I used to be able to easily find it by searching it and would come back to it every now and then, but I can't find it anymore. If anyone knows the article I'm talking about or some equivalent literature that explains what happened, I'd appreciate it.
Additionally, I'm looking for reading on how the US forced Japan into economic stagnation after the 80's. Thanks for any help.
Edit: found it, it's an interesting read for anyone who's interested
$11.2 billion has been spent to date on the non-existent high speed rail in California according to CA High Speed Rail Authority.
a15action.com - Coordinated Economic Blockade to Free Palestine: A proposal to coordinate a multi-city economic blockade on April 15th in solidarity with Palestine recently received overwhelming commitments to participate around the US and internationally.
listening to these fully libbed deep state insider type podcasts and the world these people fucking live in.
Actual transcription:
Opens with Churchill speech
Follows with Zelenskyy speech
“Many comparisons have been made between Zelenskyy and Wiston Churchill, Professor Lord Andrew Roberts, how far do those similarities go?”
“[Very posh voice] I think they go very faaaar in fact. Chuckle. You know, I think he’s been called ‘Churchill with an iphone’.”
“His relationship with his generals is very similar… he lets his generals know that he’s in charge.”
Turns to other guest, another posh voice
“I think Churchill with an iPhone is exactly right.”
The President of Peru, Dina Boluarte, has said on national radio and TV that she is the victim of judicial persecution in the Rolex case. Together with her cabinet, Boluarte is victimizing herself, in the style of Peru's former presidents.
Members of Congress from the Peru Libre party (Leftist party but not insane or a weird cult) have just tabled a motion to vacate office against the President of Peru, Dina Boluarte, for the corruption cases related to the Rolex affair.
The Peruvian National Police, following a search warrant, broke down the door of one of the homes of the President of Peru, Dina Boluarte, who is being investigated for corruption. This marks an event, as never before has the private residence of a sitting president of Peru been the target of a search. Dina Boluarte has been Peru's president since December 2022, when former president Pedro Castillo was ousted for attempting a coup d'état.
Dina's usefulness to the US and the Fujimoristas is running out; after the elections, she will go to jail.
The Deprogram subreddit has an AMA going with a Jewish anti-Zionist and former Israeli communist living in Germany right now. I thought it was pretty interesting to read through.
Thailand’s economy stumbles as Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia race ahead
Thai economy is falling far behind its Southeast Asian peers amid growing middle-income trap fears.
Growing fears? Thailand has been in the trap since the 1997-98 financial crisis that the imperialists subjected the country to. Surprising that when foreigners run a speculative roulette in your economy, it collapses! GDP growth has never been the same afterwards.
Now, under an 200 years-outdated Royal-Military superstructure I don’t see how things will improve. Suffering with a fertility rate of 1.3 without the economic development of South Korea, Japan or Singapore.
China’s BRI will help with badly needed infrastructure but the rot goes deeper. It is projected that Viet Nam will reach parity with Thailand’s economy by 2030, and soon overtake it after that. Long gone are the days of import-substitution industrialization.
Thailand may have escaped the tumultuous period of European colonization from the 1500s-1800s but is now suffering under the imperialism and “neo-imperialism” of the 1900s and 2000s.
No wonder Thailand ruling class has shifted it’s alliances towards China, as shown by the recent ISEAS poll. However, NGOs and “activists” have now been mobilised in this moribund economy to maintain US hegemony.
Betrayed and continuing to be betrayed by the West for 100 years. Sometimes we learn the lesson the hard way.
It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.
A big part of the Western idea of communism is that everyone ends up in the same place and thus there is no motivation to succeed.
This, of course, makes it rather confusing when Kamala Harris espouses the idea of equity being "we all end up at the same place." An equality of outcomes?
When Ahmed Ghandour was released from Ashkelon Prison in 1994, he promised his comrades still inside that he would help them achieve freedom. A few years after he arrived in Gaza, he, alongside Ahmed Al-Jabari and Marwan Issa, engineered and executed the Operation Dissipated Illusion.
On June 25, 2006, at 5:15 a.m., a group of Palestinian Resistance fighters infiltrated through a tunnel to the outskirts of the Kerem Shalom border crossing east of the Gaza Strip and attacked an occupation military outpost. That day, the occupation army woke up to an announcement from Abu Obeida, the military spokesperson for Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, stating that the resistance succeeded in killing two Israeli soldiers and injuring five others, in addition to capturing the soldier Gilad Shalit. Abu Obeida summed it up: “Shalit will not be released except through a prisoner exchange.”
...
Netanyahu tasked Ofer Dekel with pressuring the resistance leadership in the prisons. He asked him to go to the Prisons Service to arrange a meeting with Hamas leaders in Hadarim Prison to have them pressure the leadership outside. The security official met with prisoners Tawfiq Abu Naim, Yahya Sinwar, and Abdel Nasser Issa. A few days after this meeting, whose echoes reverberated in the prison and were conveyed through the prison administration to other prisons, the Prisons Service transferred all the Hamas leaders in the prisons, including Sinwar and all the detained members of the Legislative Council, to the Negev desert prison. The prison administration provided the prisoners with a cell phone and asked them to contact the Hamas leadership outside so that they would soften their position in exchange for releasing all of them in a preliminary exchange. The prisoners’ leadership noticed the trap that the Israelis had set and how they sought to sow confusion and dissent among the prisoners, especially those sentenced to life imprisonment, not to mention the sick, elderly, children, and women. However, the resistance factions, in all exchange operations that they conduct, ensure that the release does not include only specific individuals from the same party, but primarily aims to include all categories of prisoners from all organizations.
The prisoners’ leadership handed over the phone to the prison administration and informed them of its position and condition: that only Yahya Sinwar would be released and that he must be delivered safely to the Gaza Strip for consultation with the leadership on the issue of the exchange deal. Of course, Dekel rejected Sinwar’s offer, which thwarted the Israeli plan. In less than an hour, the Prisons Service returned the prisoners to the prisons from which they had been gathered.
Negotiations remained frozen throughout 2010, especially after Sinwar learned the details—from his lawyer visiting him in prison—of the negotiation agreement that had been presented at al-Zahar’s house. The planned agreement excluded many senior prisoners, especially those who had planned and executed major operations, including Hassan Salameh, Abdullah Barghouti, and Ibrahim Hamed.
Through a phone smuggled to Room 11 of Beersheba Prison, Sinwar made a call to al-Zahar informing him of his position and the prisoners who rejected the proposed deal. Sinwar then made another call to the leader Khaled Meshal, informing him of his objection and that of all the prisoners. Meshal promised Sinwar that he would halt the deal, and this is what happened.
Before dismantling the phone and hiding it to avoid detection, Sinwar made his final call to his brother Mohammed Sinwar, saying to him: “Say hello to Hajj [referring to his former cellmate Ahmed Al-Jabari] and tell him that the trust he has is not in vain” (referring to the captive Shalit).
Sinwar specified from inside his prison the price for the release of Gilad Shalit. The agreement was concluded on October 11, 2011, with the Netanyahu government announcing its approval of the deal with Hamas which achieved the liberation of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar.
There is this MEP, Nico Semsrott, a comedian, got elected to the European Parliament for a satire party. Anyway he's depressed and quitting, and promoting his book (which he didn't write or read apparently, based on his notes), so there's a bunch of recent interviews.
That guy is such a fucking lib. He describes how utterly pointless and soul-crushing this whole system is, and how it's 100% totally impossible to change literally anything as an MEP, and yet, he still sounds so very lib. Like how is that even possible? Zeit interview (in German)
Some direct action had taken place after hearing that one of our MPs (Marie Sukers) literally went to Shitrael a week ago to praise the extermination of al-Shifa under the South African flag:
Hezbollah compilation of them owning IOF tanks:
https://twitter.com/BIG__Brother7/status/1774747230999601627Info and footage of Hezbollah shooting down one of the IOF's largest reconnaissance drone:
https://nitter.poast.org/Southerner2000/status/1776812209508692378NSFW/L
targeting and deliberately attacking / murdering Palestinians. Using food drops as bait. Shows bastards slowy popping shots at a young man carrying food walking away. They keep popping shots tourtoursly until he is dead and his corpse left for the dogs.Correistas call for Noboa's resignation.
Members of the Citizen Revolution party, the largest party in Ecuador's National Assembly, have called on the country's president, Daniel Noboa, to resign due to his inability to govern.
Argentina and Guatemala joined the chorus of Latin American countries and condemned the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador by the Ecuadorian national police.
Argentina also recalled the situation of the Venezuelan asylum seekers in its embassy in Venezuela, who are waiting for safe passage to leave the country.
The request also covers the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador yesterday by the National Police, at the behest of the government.
Bolivian President Luis Arce condemned the invasion of the Mexican embassy by the Ecuadorian police.
want to be depressed about argentina? Ben Norton - CIA and Wall Street are taking over Argentina: President Milei sells off his country
On Good Friday, criminals entered a hotel in Puerto Lopez, Manabi, Ecuador, and kidnapped 11 people, including a family of five. All 5 members of the same family were found dead. The other 6 kidnapped were rescued. In addition, another councillor was murdered.
Daily reminder that the Zionist entity is a haven for pedos:
https://nitter.poast.org/QudsNen/status/1776613511650586856
Excerpted from an incredible speech in advance of International Quds Day.
The Islamic world will celebrate the destruction of Israel
We are hopeful today’s youth will witness the day when Holy Quds is in Muslim hands, and they can say their prayers there. God willing, the Islamic world will be able to celebrate the destruction of Israel.
-Imam Khamenei, April 3, 2024
Danish Frigate Failure In The Red Sea: Couldn't Fire Missiles, Aging Artillery Shells Misfired
More NATO excellence:
The Danish frigate Ivar Huitfeldt is on its way home after having spent seven weeks in the Red Sea, where it was part of the American Operation Prosperity Guardian, helping zionist-aligned ships violate the Yemeni blockade against the genocide in Gaza.
A small military news website has gotten hold of a classified report from the frigate's captain, describing a skirmish in march in which the frigate shot down four Yemeni drones. According to the report the frigate's radar system malfunctioned for 30 minutes during the skirmish, preventing the frigate from firing it's surface to air missiles. The crew then fired on the drives with the ship's guns but many of the 30 year old shells exploded before hitting it's target.
The captain claims that the technical issues has been known by the Liberal Party-controlled ministry of defense long before the frigate was deployed but that nothing has been done to alleviate them. The official press release about the skirmish didn't mention the technical issues or how close the drones came to hitting their target.
The minister of defense claims that he has not been briefed by his bureaucy and that he only learned about the faulty weapons systems when approached by the media. "Unions" representing enlisted personnel and officers are angry about the ship being deployed with substandard equipment and about their members being in actual danger because of it.
This incident is not isolated, as a series of stories detailing mismanagement and incompetence within the Royal Danish Navy have emerged. Instances include ships operating without functional fire control systems for years and staffing shortages preventing gun operations and nighttime missions.
The abundance of stories of military mismanagement in mainstream media could also be seen in connection to the regime's grandiose plans of aggressive military buildup. Not only does official regime propaganda have an interest in justifying the exorbitant costs to the public, apparatchiks within the various parts of the military are also seeing an opportunity to secure extra funding for their own petty kingdoms by leaking stories about how needy they are.
A 4.8 earthquake hit NYC this morning. The footage from the U.N. Security Council meeting is pretty funny.
I was gonna do an April Fool's bit where I was gonna state my undying love and respect for the media bias chart but I realized that it's not actually very funny when that would just make me indistinguishable from the average Redditor. and the prospect of reading the Washington Post nowadays fills me with both hatred and dread
This tragedy reignited the debate about bullying in the supposedly happiest country in the world.
On Tuesday, a twelve-year-old boy shot and killed a classmate and wounded two others in Viertola, a school with around 800 students and 90 staff members in Vantaa city.
Using a gun belonging to a close relative, he fired at his three classmates before being apprehended by the police without resistance nearly three kilometers from the crime scene.
"“This incident is deeply upsetting. On my own behalf and on behalf of the Government, I would like to express my condolences to the family and friends of the deceased child. In addition, two children were seriously injured. My thoughts are with the victims, their families and the pupils and staff of Viertola school," Finnish President Alexander Stubb said.
Although the motives are still unknown, this tragedy has reignited the debate on bullying and the mental health of young people in a country that is supposedly the happiest in the world and has an exemplary school system.
"We collectively thought that as a society, we had learned from previous school shootings, but a day like this should never have happened," Finnish Police Chief Seppo Kolehmainen stated.
With 5.6 million inhabitants and 1.5 million registered firearms, Finland ranks among the countries with the highest number of guns per capita due to its population's enthusiasm for hunting and sports shooting.
The first school shooting in Finland occurred in Tuusula in November 2007, when an 18-year-old student killed eight people with a pistol before committing suicide with a shot to the head.
One year later, another 22-year-old student shot and killed nine classmates and a teacher at a vocational school in Kauhajoki before also committing suicide. In 2012, a 23-year-old man carried out another shooting at a high school in Orivesi, though without any fatalities.
Additionally, there have been other attacks in educational institutions involving edged weapons in 2012 and 2013, resulting in one student's death and injuries to four others.
On Friday, Bolivia's foreign ministry issued a statement, saying the country "expresses its solidarity with the sister People's Republic of China, in the face of the loss of life and severe material damage caused by a large earthquake that occurred in recent hours off the coast of Taiwan".
Lol
Taiwan slams Bolivia for quake solidarity with China - CNA
DPP authorities' politicization of earthquake a 'secondary disaster' to Taiwan residents - Global Times
I couldn’t find the actual statement on their website.
I don't understand why everyone is so obsessed with "China manufacturing overcapacity."
This isn't new. We saw the same thing with Japan, and the solution was simply to deflate the value of the USD/EUR relative to the Yen. Do the same thing relative to the RMB and you would solve all of these overcapacity issues.
Of course, the West likes the benefits of having a strong currency without appreciating the costs.
I know we know it wasn't an accident (and honestly it seems like most Libs agree), but we know that the IDF snipped WCK people before the strike which killed 7.
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1775206694001275316
P.S. Reminder, even at the worse polling and where you had ghouls on lemmy/reddit, the polling was for a ceasefire. The people in power don't care though -- be it in the US or Germany.
The UK might have to change course due to some laws it has but idk how that works with Parliament being sovereign.
The Ecuadorean police, following orders from President Daniel Noboa, INVADED the Mexican embassy in Ecuador to remove the former vice-president, Jorge Glass, who had been granted political asylum and was taking refuge there. Following the blatant assault on international law, with Ecuador invading the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with the country, on the orders of the country's president, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The three candidates for the Mexican presidency in this June's elections have condemned the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador. Jorge Alvarez, from the Citizen's Movement, and Claudia Sheinbaum, from MORENA, called for the government to act firmly.
There are politicians who don't think about the side-effects of their actions, and what they can cause for citizens. Ecuador is isolating itself more and more from the world with these actions, and anyone who thinks otherwise, just watch what happens.
Pity for the Ecuadorians on the Mexico-US border. Following the invasion of the Mexican embassy by the Ecuadorian police, at the behest of the Ecuadorian government, several countries condemned it.
Many drew parallels with other countries where the conflict over asylum seekers has already taken place, such as Ecuador itself with Julian Assange. And the concern remains:
Analysts consider if this fact is not condemned by the West, what will stop authoritarians like Nicolas Maduro from doing the same, with Venezuelan opponents who are refugees in the Argentine embassy in the country?
Mexico has broken off relations with Ecuador and announced that it will withdraw from the country in the next few hours, expecting the same from the Ecuadorian delegation in Mexico. Brazil expressed its solidarity with the Mexican government following the raid on the Mexican embassy by Ecuadorian police.
"The measure carried out by the Ecuadorian government constitutes a serious precedent and should be strongly repudiated, whatever the justification for it."
The President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, expressed his solidarity with the Mexican President, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, AMLO, after the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador. The Organization of American States, the OAS, condemned the raid by Ecuadorian police on the Mexican embassy in the country. It said it expected a meeting of the body's permanent council to discuss the situation.
Some news regarding an anti-colonial struggle going on against France (
), from theredstream on Telegram:A crisis brewing in New Caledonia
Earlier this week, the French senate endorsed a constitutional review project bearing significant modifications to the Pacific overseas territory’s election system, but not without making its own amendments.
The reform aims to expand the roll of eligible voters for New Caledonia’s provincial elections, currently reserved for locally-born New Caledonian citizens, migrants who have been living on the islands since before 1988, and their descendants.
With the reform implemented, the next elections would be open to French nationals with at least 10 years of uninterrupted residence in New Caledonia, allowing an extra 11,000 people to vote, most of whom are non-indigenous.
The next elections, due by mid-December, are seen as crucial for the French overseas territory, where voices favoring independence have grown stronger among the indigenous Kanak people.
Fearing to lose the archipelago, French president Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party, backed by the right wing, aims to shift the balance of forces in the local institutions currently held by pro-independence politicians.
New Caledonia’s pro-independence umbrella, the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), views the move as an attempt to roll back the achievements gained by the now-defunct Nouméa Accord of 1998. They call for a new statute to enshrine a clear pathway toward an independent and sovereign state.
The fact that the archipelago is embroiled in a deep economic crisis doesn’t help. The government led by pro-independence President Louis Mapou is under pressure, as ordinary people feel the burden of increased cost of living.
Tensions in New Caledonia are set to continue to escalate as the French government seeks to hinder the overseas territory’s self-determination and retain the strategically important archipelago within the French Republic.
It remains to be seen whether the revision marks an end to a peaceful process and a possible return to tumult, which heralds new hostilities.
Essay by Nick turse, the author of "kill everything that moves" on the Vietnam war. This article is about terrorism and counterterrorism in the sahel, centered on Niger delegitimizing the US's airbase 201 in the country. It remains to be seen whether the Americans will leave or if they'll stay in the country despite Niger wishes.
... and despite U.S. security assistance pouring into Mali and its military officers receiving training from the United States, terrorist violence in the Sahel has in no way been reduced. In 2002 and 2003, according to State Department statistics, terrorists caused 23 casualties in all of Africa. Last year, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution, attacks by Islamist militants in the Sahel alone resulted in 11,643 deaths – an increase of more than 50,000%.
Richard Medhurst is a cooler version of Hasan with a better understanding of geopolitics. He gives no fucks about optics for liberals and NATO leftists.
I do wish Hasan went more in depth with MENA coverage because him being Turkish and familiar with their politics adds a unique perspective that you don’t get often in the west. I guess he’s sort of doing that now with the Israel-Palestine war coverage.
2 hours ago
IDF Calls Up Air Defense Reservists Amid Concerns Of Iranian Retaliation For Syria Strike - I24NEWS
There are fears that any retaliatory strike originating directly from Iranian territory, rather than through its proxies, would necessitate a more substantial and direct response from the IDF
SouthCom to Have Presence at Argentina's Integrated Naval Base
"Milei, dressed as a colonial soldier... is determined to hand over Argentine natural assets," former Ambassador Castro said.
In the early hours of Friday, Argentine President Javier Milei and Gen. Laura Richardson, the commander of the United States Southern Command (Southcom), held a meeting in Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the South American country.
During a speech to military personnel from both countries, the far-right politician reiterated his willingness to forge a "strategic alliance" with the United States and its allies and announced that SouthCom will participate in the "Integrated Naval Base."
Initially proposed by the administration of Alberto Fernandez (2019-2023), this naval base will include a port for ship repair and replenishment, which will be the closest facility to Antarctica and "the gateway to the white continent," Milei said.
However, the visit of the SouthCom Commander to the Argentine Patagonia sparked criticism from Argentine personalities, who highlighted the far-right president's subordination to US geopolitical interests.
"Milei, dressed as a colonial soldier to meet with the commander of the SouthCom -the partner of the British invader- is determined to hand over geopolitical, strategic, and exploitation control of our country’s resources and natural assets," said Alicia Castro, former ambassador of Argentina to the United Kingdom.
"We have already seen what the U.S. did when it cooperated in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan... We saw how SouthCom, the CIA, and the School of the Americas participated and participate in all coups d'état in our region," she commented critically.
Nevertheless, Milei said that he will defend Argentine sovereignty "by building strategic alliances with those with whom we share a worldview."
On Tuesday night, Gen. Richardson landed in Buenos Aires to begin her third official visit to Argentina. During the past few days, she held meetings with senior officials from the Milei administration and with high-ranking military personnel.
According to U.S. official versions, these meetings aimed to deepen bilateral relations in terms of "cooperation in regional defense." As part of this cooperation, Presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni announced that the USS George Washington aircraft carrier of the U.S. Navy will visit their country in May.
Mexican-Ecuadorian Crisis
In an exclusive interview with teleSUR, the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Barcena, announced that the Government of her country will denounce Ecuador in the ICJ for the violation of sovereignty with the forced invasion of the Mexican embassy in Quito
Mexican diplomat Roberto Canseco was visibly shaken after being assaulted by Ecuador's police as they invaded the embassy of Mexico in Quito in order to abduct former Vice President Jorge Glas. Glas' whereabouts are unknown.
“I am very worried because they may kill Jorge Glas.”
Jorge Glas was kicked out of Lenin Moreno's goverment because he refused the become a comprador.
CELAC ought to call on Daniel Noboa to ensure the safety of Jorge Glas and he must immediately be returned to Mexican authorities for his transfer to Mexico.
Daniel Noboa confirms that his security forces abducted and doubles down in declaring his blatant disregard for international law. The embassy of Mexico must send off their security footage before Noboa's henchmen destroy it.
Honduras, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia and Nicaragua repudiate the actions of the Ecuadorian police. As it violates the Vienna Convention.
A bunch of right-wing Ecuadorian chuds on Twitter celebrating this, when this shit that Noboa has done is isolating their own country from its neighbors and even the West, at a time when they need support as they are basically in a civil war.
Palestine Action fuck up the roof of a factory:
https://twitter.com/Pal_action/status/1775070451057709440SZ is reporting about Ukrainian efforts to build fortified lines (in German)
The gist is: It's not going so well, Ukraine failed to construct defensive lines in the past two years, and now, they do not have the equipment and manpower to this quickly. Quote (machine translation):
Instead of a continuous line, Synjehubov's men are building "resistance positions" on strategic heights from which advancing Russians can best be taken under fire.
So far, the military governor admits, there has only been "actual construction work" on "30 percent" of the positions selected by the Ministry of Defense for the second line of defence. The work on the inspected position will also take several more weeks, and there is still no sign of dragon's teeth against advancing tanks, let alone guns or other weapons.
Majority of ASEAN people favor China over U.S., survey finds
According to the State of Southeast Asia 2024 survey, compiled by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, 50.5% of respondents opted for China and 49.5% preferred the U.S. if ASEAN had to pick sides -- the first time Beijing edged past Washington since the annual survey started asking the question in 2020. Last year's survey showed 38.9% preferred China and 61.1% chose the U.S.
Other findings of the survey include that 59.5% of the respondents see China as the most influential economic power in Southeast Asia, far ahead of the U.S. at 14.3%. Meanwhile, 43.9% said China is the most influential political power in the region, versus America's 25.8%.
Philippines and Vietnam are being a bit cringe, but all others look good
I made a comment on Lemmygrad months back giving a brief overview of North Korea-Malaysia relations. Malaysians used to have visa-free access to North Korea.
Here’s a copy
North Korea-Malaysia diplomatic relations were cordial in the past but worsened in 2017 after the assassination of Kim Jong-nam in 2017 in KLIA. Relationships soured further in 2021 after Malaysia expedited a North Korean businessman to the US in contradiction to north Korean wishes.
Further information by an official Malaysian government website. Another Malaysian site detailing the timeline of events.
Here is north Korea's official response by their Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It is important to note however the Malaysian establishment is in favour of positive diplomatic relations with North Korea. Friendly relations is especially advocated by Mahathir, a member of the traditional Malay-Muslim ascendant national bourgeoisie that governed as PM from 1981-2003 and 2018-2020. He did leave remarks that he wanted to improve relations with North Korea when he was in power. However after the Sheraton move, and subsequently 2 governent reshuffles and the 2022 election, diplomatic relations with North Korea is stuck in limbo without any sign of change in the short term.
In terms of national ideology and foreign policy, North Korea and Malaysia have more in common than differences. To speak of it in a Malaysian perspective, Malaysia was one of the first member of ASEAN to normalize relations with communist countries. Despite being a middle-power state, it has more than 111 diplomatic missions in 85 countries, with a passport holding visa-free travel through 168 territories.
Although the current circumstances is unfortunate, I don't doubt that eventually Malaysia-North Korea relations will warm up again - especially with the decline of US-led Western hegemony.
As for Indonesia, this article titled Indonesia and North Korea: warm memories of the Cold War gives quite detailed information on the subject.
I’d also like to add that DPRK alongside Iran, are the only ones that maintain a strictly progressive and anti-imperialist position on “Israel” and Palestine.
All other AES and Islamic countries falter, either through their “2-state solution” rhetoric or even worse by having non-insignificant economic relations with “Israel” (looking at you Viet Nam).
An earthquake offshore Taiwan with a magnitude of 7.2 rocked the city of Taipei on Wednesday morning
For Cuba the New Report of Sonic Attacks Are a Propaganda Operation
"The program that has made the CBS network, a powerful network of the United States, is unsustainable and inexplicable".
Johana Tablada, deputy director general of the United States of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba (MINREX), during an interview with AP, spoke about the alleged sonic attacks on the staff of the United States Embassy in Havana and the political operation behind them.
The Cuban diplomat said that the "Havana syndrome," the name given to the media campaign that denounced the sonic attacks, is non-existent, and that there is no evidence of any disease caused by the stay of American personnel in Cuba.
According to the words of Tablada, the reaction of the MINREX, is of concern, "it is not an investigation: the program that has made the CBS network, a powerful network of the United States, is unsustainable and inexplicable," added the diplomat.
On the investigation he stated, "the presentation of witnesses pulled by the hair, which have nothing to do with the history that from the beginning was an operation, today is presented again, not as a journalistic investigation, but as a political operation, as a propaganda operation".
"There are solid scientific reports, commissioned by the Trump administration, that deceived him for two years, such as the "Jason Report", which clearly concludes, to say the least, that the symptoms that may have been real cannot be attributed to an extraordinary cause, such as an attack, but they are linked to natural conditions, pre-existing diseases or environmental issues," said Johana Tablada.
"There is also the report of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, of a committee of Cuban experts, which also agrees on that result," he added.
The diplomat also recalled the actions of Avril Haines, national director of intelligence, who conducted another study in conjunction with other international agencies and all the conclusions were the same there was no attack.
Tablada denounced the omission of this and other information that is being made of the subject, "omits in this work the testimonies of people who were allegedly affected and who have been published by the press in the past, such as the letter made by the people who were in Havana at the time and ask the State Department not to take them, who do not feel attacked, attacked or in danger".
"Who wants to keep talking about a story that’s fiction? Who is interested in reviving in an electoral year the false accusations that led to dozens and dozens of additional coercive measures against Cuba and whose main objective was, in 2017, to impose a "stop" and abruptly stop a process of improving Cuba-US relations?" , reflects the Cuban diplomat.
"Cuba was definitely not interested in interrupting that process. Senator Marco Rubio was interested at the time, he was interested in the incoming Trump administration, the US government," he said.
The deputy director declared that the issue is of interest to Cuba, since the Caribbean country is presented as a threat to the national security of the United States, again, "Cuba is interested because it tries to present Cuba once again as a threat to the national security of the United States, and because, even if Cuba is not the supposed main actor, put the Cuban territory as the place that lends itself so that foreign powers or foreign countries can do acts against the United States".
The deputy director of MINREX concluded the interview by stating that the victims of the political campaign against Cuba was not diplomacy, neither the US nor Cuba; in the words of Johana Tablada, "here the victims have really been the truth, the journalism"
COTW: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Did 72T noticed my comment from last week??!!
I want to believe. I really have to force myself to write something now. No excuses anymore.
the Democratic National Convention scheduled for 19 August where the party officially nominates its candidate for president is past the 7 August deadline to certify presidential candidates on the Ohio ballot
…
I am left to conclude that the Democratic National Committee must either move up its nominating convention or the Ohio General Assembly must act by May 9, 2024 (90 days prior to a new law’s effective date) to create an exception to this statutory requirement,”
Lmao, just incredible stuff from the Dems again
I like how Libs were laughing at people appearing on Fox and Friends giving a message to Trump but are silent now that we have many examples of people doing the same for Biden and Morning Joe
Argentina's Peronist Union for the Homeland bloc has announced that it will present a request to the Mercosur Parliament on April 29 for Ecuador to be suspended as an Associated State. The group has asked the countries to support it.
Reuters - Senegal's newly elected President Bassirou Diomaye Faye on Wednesday said his government would conduct an audit of the West African nation's oil, gas and mining sectors. The announcement followed a campaign promise to re-negotiate the terms of oil, gas and mineral contracts with foreign operators in the country, which is set to begin producing oil and gas this year.
The following are the main companies operating in Senegal's oil and gas sectors:
BP BP and U.S.-listed Kosmo Energy are leading the development of Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA), Senegal's first liquefied natural gas (LNG) project. GTA, a floating facility straddling the border between Senegal and Mauritania, will produce 2.3 million tonnes of LNG per year in its first phase. BP is the project's operator, with a 56% stake. Kosmos Energy holds a 27% stake. Senegal, through its national oil company Petrosen, holds 10%, and Mauritania, through its SMHPM oil company, 7%.
KOSMOS ENERGY Kosmos Energy entered the Senegal oil and gas sector in 2014 with the acquisition of stakes in the Cayar and St. Louis offshore blocks where the GTA is located. It has become the operator of the Yakaar-Teranga gas field with a 90% working interest after BP decided to exit the field. Yakaar-Teranga is estimated to be one of the world's largest gas discoveries in recent years and holds around 25 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of "advantaged" gas - or gas that can be quickly brought into production, according to the company.
WOODSIDE ENERGY Australia's Woodside Energy (WDS.AX), opens new tab holds 82% of the Sangomar oil and gas field being developed off the coast of Senegal. Petrosen holds the rest. The Sangomar field is located approximately 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of Senegal's capital Dakar. Work commenced in early 2020 and first oil production is expected in mid-2024. This first phase of development will target 230 million barrels of crude oil.
TOTAL The French energy major signed an agreement in 2017 to explore for oil and gas off Senegal's Atlantic coast. Under the deal, Total is exploring in the deepwater Rufisque and Ultra Deep Offshore blocks where it is the operator and holds 90% and 70% stakes respectively.
ORANTO Nigeria's privately-held Oranto Petroleum is exploring two undrilled oil blocks off the coast of Senegal, the Cayar Shallow, now open to farm-in partners, and the St Louis Shallow, which it entered in 2015. Senegal's mining sector is mainly focused on gold, phosphate and zircon. The country also has significant reserves of base metals such as iron, copper and nickel, and has important limestone reserves.
These are the main mining companies operating in the Senegal:
ENDEAVOUR Australia-based Endeavour owns Senegal's largest producing gold mine, the Sabodala-Massawa, which has been in operation for over a decade. The mine was acquired as part of Endeavour's purchase of smaller West African miner Teranga in February 2021, which had bought Barrick Gold's 90% stake in the Massawa project. Endeavour is currently expanding the Sabodala-Massawa mine with the addition of a new processing facility.
MANAGEM Moroccan mining company Managem acquired IAMGOLD's Boto Gold Project in eastern Senegal last year. The project has mineral reserves of 31.5 million tons of ore grading 1.6 g/t gold, equivalent to 1,605,000 ounces. It is still in construction phase, with plant commissioning scheduled for the first half of 2025
DANGOTE Nigeria's Dangote Cement has a 1.5 million tons per year factory around 60 kilometres outside Dakar. It is one of the biggest foreign direct investments by an African company in Senegal, according to the company's website.
tl;dr Companies based in UK, USA, Australia, Nigeria, France, and Morocco hold major stakes in Senegal.
John Helmer on the second de-energization campaign of Russia against ukraine. He posits that this time they are pushing to depopulate kharkiv, eastern ukraine both to make seizing territory easier and to create a refugee crisis in Western ukraine/Poland. He draws on and links some specific sources of stats on displaced people in ukraine to make the case that more people are leaving ukraine to Poland now than since the beginning of the war.
You know, maybe it's actually good this time that I got a weeklong ban from Twitter. Sure, I can't troll the Diaper Forces or send threats to the African Christian Democratic Party, but April Fool's has undoubtedly already turned that dumpster fire into a nationwide conflagration when all the
come out to play.BBC doing something good?
Gaza evacuation warnings from IDF contain many errors, BBC finds | BBC News
Listening to BBC news again but bcs it's 1:30pm it's just about celebrity drama and stuff
The new Scottish hate crimes bill rolled out today and mouth foaming reactionaries are trying to counter it by spamming it with reports of the Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf for "anti white racism" because of a bit from a speech he made in 2020 that got clipped and shared around by a load of groyper "west has fallen" guys (this is the link to it - CW for racist comments ofc)
Below is a list of headlines mentioning the US from Danish state broadcaster DR's coverage of the Gaza genocide. The headlines are from march and until now.
List of headlines
April 5th: "Biden turned up the rhetoric: Now 'Israel' wants to open border crossing in northern Gaza"
March 28th: "Netanyahu backtracks and wants to discuss Rafah-offensive with Biden"
March 26th: "'Israel' expert: The US change of course towards 'Israel' is hurting many 'israelis'"
March 21st: "The US wants a vote in the security council on Gaza ceasefire on Friday"
March 21st: "With a harbour like this the Americans can send two million meals a day into Gaza. But does it make sense?"
March 21st: "Blinken: We are getting closer to an agreement on ceasefire in Gaza"
March 20th: "Analysis: Deep crisis in the relationship between Biden and Netanyahu"
March 20th: "Despite warnings from Biden Netanyahu is 'firmly determined' on an offensive in Rafah"
March 15th: "'Unheard of': USA's senate leader criticises Netanyahu and calls for new elections"
March 10th: "Equipment for Gaza harbour on its way from the USA: 'For the first two months nothing suggests it will help people in Gaza'"
March 8th: "Joe Biden told the world about new aid plans before he told 'Israel': 'Seen as a defeat'"
March 8th: "The US wants to establish a harbour for aid in Gaza: Patience with 'Israel' is running out"
March 4th: "USA's vice president: 'Israel' doesn't do enough to get more aid into Gaza"
March 2nd: "The USA wants to airdrop aid over Gaza: Ineffective but necessary says aid organisation"
Just reading the headlines (like most people do) would leave you with a completely distorted view on the evil empire's rule in the genocide. You would believe that Genocide Joe and his merry band of humanitarians were doing their gosh darnedest to stop the killings and that the US was something like the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders.
I have no reason to believe that DR is different from other western mainstream media in this regard. Alternative and heterodox media sources comes with their own caveats but if all you read is what passes for objective quality journalism in the west then you are going to end up misinformed and believing in fairy tales.
I know there’s a thread about the likely chicken-human spread of avian flu, but I hadn’t realized that cow-cow spread is happening:
https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/04/01/bird-flu-spreads-cow-to-cow-and-to-one-human-in-texas/
Also we’re in the midst of spring migration: https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/
I wonder if we’ll see rich wellness people get it from unpasteurized cow milk
Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah is now live: https://rumble.com/v4mulmw-presstv-live.html
I have made a post with other links and images for International Quds Day here. https://hexbear.net/post/2219502
The latest simplicius is entirely focused on the military situation in ukraine/Russia so is worth reading if you want to go further than "Russia is winning".
Discussion includes the shifting narratives in the western press, recent ukrainian mobilization age bill, degradation of ukrainian armour/vehicles, paucity of any potential US aid package, and current strategies of the two nations.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-4324-zelensky-steps-closer
Apparently Donnie had an even larger haul from a fund raising event yesterday(?). Love that one of the things that's most being talked about in this election is the pissing contest that the rich mega donors are having.
Some light Korean history I'll make occasionally posts of
Joseon Era (1392 - 1897)
Korea's first encounter with America, but they didn't know it at the time.
1867, Summer period, the Sherman Incident
Aug 9 to 16
An armed U.S. merchant ship, a centerboard schooner named The General Sherman, sets sail to attempt to force Joseon (Korea) to open up to foreign trade with its holds filled to the brim with cotton cloth, glass, tin plates, and other items bought from China. The captain and crew also had a secret objective of using the opportunity to trade to loot the royal tombs that lie north-east of Pyongyang.
Even though the ship flew the U.S flag, there were only three to five 'westerners' onboard. The Americans owner of the ship Preston, captain Paige, first mate wilson, a welsh missionary Thomas, and some nameless brit. The crew primarily consisted of around a dozen Chinese and a handful of Malay sailors.
At this time Korea, ruled by prince Yi Ha Eung acting as regent to the young king Gojong, was known as the “Hermit Kingdom” due to its isolationist policies. Policies stemming from Korea being invaded many times over the past years by Chinese and Japanese bandits, soldiers, looters, etc.
Shortly prior to the American incident, the Korean kingdom had rebuffed an invasion attempt by the French who had mounted a punitive expedition on Korea for their persecution of Korean converts to catholicism and the death of seven French missionaries. That last bit is important so keep it in your head for a short while.
Aug 16 to 31
The General Sherman stopped at the mouth of the Taedong River at a government checkpoint, but instead of waiting for the local officials to message the kingdom officials, the captain ordered the ship to continue upriver towards Pyongyang, making occasionally stops for the welsh missionary to step off the boat and proselytizing villagers and passing out bibles.
The governor of Pyongyang dispatched his adjutant general with a small crew to meet and provide food to the crew in order to try to slow them down and hopefully persuade them to leave instead while the governor went to meet with the Regent.
The Adjutant General's journey would take a few days but the meeting with the regent was more faster and his decision more severe. The foreign ship must leave or the crew was to be slaughtered to the last man. The reason for this decision was because the regent thought they were another French warship sent on a punitive expedition and decisive action must be taken to protect the capital from being bombarded by their guns.
Aug 31 to Sept 2
The General Sherman continues upriver until it runs aground in shallow water and becomes stuck. Unknown to them, it was due to rainwater swelling the river larger than its normal size that caused the crew mistake the amount of maneuvering room they had and leading to their current predicament of taking a break in a sandbar
While trying to unstick the ship, some of the crew were dispatched for forage for supplies on one of the ship's smaller boats while another was sent to recon further upriver. Coincidentally the smaller boat that was dispatched for foraging would encounter Pyongyang's adjutant general and his men and decided it was a good idea to take him hostage.
All the while this was going on, the scout boat sent north got shot at and returned back to the General Sherman while the crew and Pyongyang militia would skirmish with each other for days culminating in the ship opening fire on a protesting crowd of Korean villagers with their 12 pound cannons murdering 7 or so.
This would lead to the Korean militia trying to improvise a cannon-armed turtle ship (a precursor to the then-modern western iron clads designed by Korea that saw great use in repelling Japanese invading ships in prior centuries) unfortunately the Korean cannon did not have enough power to penetrate the hull of the general sherman and was repelled shortly after. The decision was then made to launch fire ships at the American ship until it caught fire and sunk.
The first two fire ships failed but the third one succeeded in setting the general sherman alight with all its cargo. The last of the crew that hadn't been burned to death abandoned ship. Many drowned before reaching the shore and the few who did would shortly join the rest of their dead crew after being beaten to death by a mob of angry Koreans.
This incident would be covered by the kingdom of Korea as another skirmish between the kingdom and France. The U.S government would inquire about the missing ship and its crew to which the diplomatic department of the kingdom would reply saying they had no idea what happened to the ship and that there were no Americans in Korea.
The loss of the merchant ship general sherman would give the U.S government enough reason to launch an "investigation" expedition into Korea that would lead to u.s forces temporarily capturing several fortresses over the 'disappeared' General Sherman. But that's enough for now.
Security forces repel warlord’s attempt to storm Haitian presidential palace
Troops thwart push led by Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier to invade unoccupied residence as firefights break out in Port-au-Prince.
At least one policeman was shot after he and other officers were forced to flee an armoured car that was later set on fire, according to local media reports. Heavy gunfire has erupted in the downtown area of Haiti’s capital as police battled gang members near the National Palace for several hours.
Scores of people were trapped by the gunfire in downtown Port-au-Prince on Monday, while dozens of others managed to flee. One man who declined to provide his name out of fear for his life told The Associated Press that he was stuck for five hours until police rescued him.
“It’s the armoured car that covered us (so we could) leave the area,” he said. The latest gunbattle comes more than a month after gangs began attacking key government infrastructure.
Gangs have torched police stations, opened fire on the main international airport and stormed the country’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates. The violence has somewhat subsided in certain areas since erupting at the end of February, but gunfire still echoes daily.
At least 1,554 people have been reported killed up to 22 March and another 826 injured, according to the UN. The situation forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to announce last month he would resign as soon as a transitional council is created.
Henry, who was on an official trip to Kenya to push for the UN-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country, remains locked out of Haiti. The proposed transitional council of nine members, which has yet to be formally established, will be responsible for choosing a new prime minister and council of ministers.
On Monday night, Haiti’s government issued a statement raising concerns over its creation, saying the current council of ministers "stumbled over proven constitutional and legal questions. The Constitution and Haitian laws nowhere provide for this institution.”
The government noted ministers met Monday to talk about the transitional council and shared the draft decree with legal experts so they “could finalise it and make it compliant with the laws of the republic.”
The current council of ministers also plans to create a joint commission to oversee the handover of responsibilities. Haiti’s government noted Henry received a list of nine people nominated to the transitional council on Friday and a draft decree establishing the council on Sunday.
Settler-on-settler violence:
https://nitter.poast.org/WAR3138/status/1776696650708189405Real Progressives Live: Putin’s Russia with Esha Krishnaswamy (~2 hours)
Note: Real Progressives is run by a small group of MMT (Modern Monetary Theory)-literate American Marxist-Leninists that aims to teach MMT as an economics theory to the wider audience (skewing boomer-ish demographics). They have good position on Stalin, geopolitics i.e. China/Russia, and generally supportive of LGBT struggles (at least from my brief interaction with them online since it’s not a topic often brought up).
They run occasional webinars with economics experts and anti-imperialists, and this most recent webinar is about Russia (the title said Putin’s Russia, but it encompasses the Soviet history and also went a bit into China near the end as well - some interesting arguments about China also).
I do think that Esha’s presentation was a bit all over the place, and her answers were sometimes too brief to be satisfactory or she didn’t know too much about the subject (especially when an audience asks how the monetary theory of the USSR was similar to MMT, which I thought even I could have answered better).
But generally I learned a few things about the USSR and Russia I didn’t know about, so if you have an hour or two to spend, take a listen.
Brazilian diplomats give Israel Kratz a nickname.
Israel Katz has come to be called "Chancellor TikTok", in reference to Katz's penchant for playing with diplomacy and using social media to attack those he considers his enemies. A TikTok politician is usually someone who only does things to virtue signaling for their supporters.
The Israeli chancellor has earned the nickname since the beginning of the problem with the Brazilian government, resulting from Lula's comparison of the war against Palestine with what Hitler committed against the Jews.
On Friday (5/4), Katz attacked Lula again. The president made a mistake this week, during the Conference on the Rights of the Child, by saying that 12.3 million Palestinian children died in the Gaza Strip, when he actually meant 12,300. In reaction, Katz wrote on social media: "There should be a law obliging anyone who wants to become president to learn how to count."
Katz had already declared Lula "persona non grata" in February, after the president made the comparison with Hitler. After that, Brazilian Twitter users spammed all of Katz's posts with "Vampetaço" (naked photos of soccer player "Vampeta").
Several countries have expressed support for the Mexican government and condemned the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, which was ordered by Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa.
Ecuador received no support, not even from the United States. The United States condemned the action and called for the two countries to go to the negotiating table and resolve the problems through diplomacy.
Countries like Spain and Portugal also condemned the invasion. Also this Sunday, an image circulated on Ecuadorian social networks, in which a government document states that it would ban the exit and entry of private planes to and from Mexico.
The Ecuadorian government responded hours later, through the Minister of Transportation and Public Works, saying that the image was false, and that the government had not made such a ban.
He also said that the government would open an investigation into the matter. The Ecuadorean government later went public and acknowledged that the document about the ban on flights to and from Mexico was real. The government also said that the document should not have been leaked, and called for the resignation of the person responsible.
A real smorgasbord of content for the news thread on nakedcapitalism.com today
Article on logistical ties between China and Central asia/russia/Afghanistan and other efforts China is making to avoid isolation in event of world war. This is a good, broad survey of different aspects of west and east Asian integration and (potential) proxy war maneuvering. Note also the importance of Xinjiang as a jump off point from China to all these places.
The US, of course, realizes the importance of Central Asia as well, but what can the Americans really offer? Even RAND admits that “the United States is unlikely to outspend China or even Russia” in Central Asia. Case in point: last year Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and announced that the Biden administration would add $20 million to the Economic Resilience Initiative in Central Asia (ERICEN). That brought the total funding up to $50 million since it was launched in September 2022. [1] The total value for Chinese projects in Central Asia is more than $63 billion.
Related is this more detailed and specific article about yellen going to China. Frankly I didn't get as much out of this as the above, but it provides some analysis of the recent xi-Biden phone call and some tea leaf reading.
I refuse to believe that false flags are a thing (I haven’t looked into the idea because I’m scared) but I just saw a story from local news outlets about how the department of homeland security is warning people to watch out for potential “Moscow-related attacks” on large gatherings
Isn’t there a big eclipse coming up
https://www.reuters.com/sports/russia-accuses-ioc-chief-conspiracy-exclude-its-athletes-2024-04-02/
Vovan & Lexus can’t keep getting away with it!
Pretty fucked up of the Olympics committee to spy on Russians and collaborate with Ukrainian intelligence to single out Russian/Belarusian athletes and spy on them to get them kicked out of the Olympics
Elon Musk causes a diplomatic problem in Brazil. X (Twitter) may be banned in Brazil.
After threats from Elon Musk, Brazil's supreme court judge Alexandre Moraes orders an investigation into the billionaire's conduct and orders Twitter not to disobey court orders
'Social networks are not lawless land! Social networks are no man's land,' the judge wrote in capital letters in his decision.
After successive attacks from the businessman, Moraes' decision came out in the middle of the night on Sunday. According to the judge, Musk committed the irregular practices of using social networks to spread disinformation and destabilize institutions of the democratic rule of law:
"In the present hypothesis, therefore, the use of illegal mechanisms by 'X' is characterized; as well as the presence of strong indications of intent by the CEO of the social network 'X', Elon Musk, in the criminal instrumentalization previously pointed out and investigated in several inquiries," wrote Moraes.
After threats from billionaire Elon Musk, owner of the social network X (formerly Twitter), Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) ordered that the businessman's conduct be investigated in a new inquiry. He also included Musk among those investigated in the existing inquiry into digital militias.
Moraes also ordered the X network not to disobey any orders from the Brazilian courts. He also imposed a fine of R$100,000 for each profile he reactivates irregularly.
Moraes said he saw signs of obstruction of justice and incitement to crime in Musk's behavior in recent days. On Saturday (6), Musk attacked Moraes' decisions in the investigations led by the minister. The businessman also threatened to reactivate the profiles of X users blocked by the courts.
Moraes is the rapporteur of investigations such as:
- Digital militias: which investigates actions orchestrated on networks to spread false information and hate speech, with the aim of undermining institutions and democracy.
- The January 8 case: which investigates the attempted coup in Brazil by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
In the course of these investigations, over the last few years, Moraes ordered the social networks to block the accounts of some of those being investigated. According to the minister, they were using the platforms to commit the irregular practices under investigation.
Musk decided to confront the minister. On Saturday, he published the following provocation above a post by Moraes on X: "Why are you demanding so much censorship in Brazil?".
Then, still on Saturday, Musk threatened that the platform would reactivate the blocked accounts, in contempt of court, even if, according to Musk, this would cost the company closure in Brazil and damage profits.
This Sunday, the billionaire posted a picture of Moraes and said that he is the "Darth Vader" of Brazil, in reference to the villain from the Star Wars film franchise.
After successive attacks from the businessman, Moraes' decision came out in the middle of the night on Sunday. According to the minister, Musk committed the irregular practices of using social networks to spread disinformation and destabilize institutions of the democratic rule of law.
He also said that platforms must follow the Constitution, under penalty of being held accountable for their actions. For Moraes, X and Musk affront Brazil's sovereignty.
"The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, the incitement to crime, the public threat of disobedience to court orders and the future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect Brazil's sovereignty and reinforce the connection of the malicious criminal instrumentalization of the activities of the former Twitter, now X," said the minister.
Musk's statements sparked backlash among politicians and authorities. The Minister of the Attorney General's Office (AGU), Jorge Messias, said that Brazil needs to approve regulation of social networks to prevent "billionaires living abroad" from attacking the democratic rule of law.
"It is urgent to regulate social networks. We can't live in a society where billionaires living abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law by breaking court orders and threatening our authorities. Social peace is non-negotiable," Messias wrote.
João Brant, Secretary for Digital Policies at the President's Secretariat for Communication, also defended the regulation of networks. He also said that Musk, in writing his attacks on Moraes, despises Brazilian justice.
"Elon Musk's attitude shows his contempt for Brazilian justice. He responds politically to the buzz of the last few days by rehashing old decisions and takes the opportunity to make agitation and extreme right-wing propaganda. Of course, there may be different opinions about the decisions of the Supreme Court and the TSE, but that's not what this is about. Musk decided to defend coup plotters and escalate the issue for political (possibly also commercial) reasons," said Brant.
The president of the Federal Court of Auditors, Bruno Dantas, said that "freedom of expression is a fundamental right that has never, anywhere in the world, meant licentiousness to break the law or attack a country's institutions".
Minister Paulo Pimenta, from the Presidency's Social Communication Secretariat, commented on Moraes' decision. He said that Musk would not intimidate Brazil.
"We will not be intimidated. Our country is sovereign and no one is going to impose their authoritarian will and enforce the logic that money makes their 'business model' above the Federal Constitution," he wrote.
Through cooperation between the Brazilian Federal Police and the FBI, US authorities can serve search and seizure warrants at the homes of the investigated Elon Musk, owner of Twitter.
The order could be issued at any time by Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Federal Supreme Court.
Today's military news from Denmark:
Top General Fired: No Confidence
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At a press release today then Danish regime's minister of defense announced that he had lost confidence in the chief of defense and has relieved him of his duties. The minister refused to elaborate on his reasons for firing his top general and would only say that he had lost confidence in him.
The sacking comes days after reports in the media detailed how the surface to air missile system on the frigate Ivar Huitfeldt was unable to fire during a skirmish with Yemeni drones in the Red Sea this March. The frigate had been sent to aid zionist-related shipping violate sanctions against the genocide in Gaza. When the sailors gave up on the missiles and fired at the drives with the ship's guns they discovered that many of the 30 year old shells detonated before hitting their targets.
An official press release issued by the navy after the skirmish didn't mention the faulty armaments and the minister of defense claims that he first learned about the failures when told about it by the media.
The frigate failure is but one of a long list of stories of military incompetence, mismanagement and misleading of political leaders. Previously it was revealed that ships had been patrolling the Arctic for years without fire control systems, making them unable to aim their guns. Naval ships in the Arctic has also been frequently incapacitated by staffing shortages and inexplicable technical issues.
"Unions" for military personnel welcomes the shift in leadership but it remains to be seen whether replacing the figurehead will help resolve the deep-seated systemic issues plaguing the Danish military.
Genocide-Related Artillery System Delayed And Over Budget
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A spanking new artillery system that the Danish regime ordered last year at great cost from zionist weapons manufacturer Elbit, a company best known for arming the genocidal apartheid regime of the zionist entity, is now turning out to be delayed for a year and the costs associated with the new system are exceeding budget.
The procurement from the controversial manufacturer was rushed through Denmark's rubberstamp parliament last year in a secretive and undemocratic process. The system was chosen despite being significantly more expensive than competing systems. That price is now turning out to be even steeper as military bureaucrats failed to account for associated costs for support infrastructure and increased need for personnel to man the system.
The minister of defense has now ordered an investigation into the role of the military procurement bureaucracy.
Loose Cannon: Failed Test Might Launch Missile
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Events are still unfolding as the Danish navy fears a harpoon missile on the frigate Niels Juel will fire near the town of Korsør as the result of a failed test of the booster engines. The navy claims there are no risk of an explosion even if the missile launches but worries of falling debris has caused authorities to stop shipping in the Great Belt as well as close the airspace over the area. The Great Belt is a busy international waterway as all shipping in and out of the Baltic Sea goes through it. Specialists has been sent to the scene to help prevent an accidental launch.
Although not as dangerous, the situation has similarities to the so-called "whoopsie missile" incident in 1982 where a live harpoon missile was fired due to technical issues and destroyed four vacation homes in northern Zealand. No persons were injured during the incident.
The PLA is opening the Taiwanese front by deploying the Netizen Expeditionary Force:
https://twitter.com/MoNDefense/status/1774056434642362413Latin American countries condemn Ecuador raid on Mexico embassy
Governments across Latin America have rallied around Mexico after security forces in Ecuador stormed the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest a controversial politician who had been granted political asylum there.
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela sharply rebuked Ecuador on Saturday, hours after the seizure of Ecuador’s former Vice President Jorge Glas, with Nicaragua joining Mexico in severing diplomatic ties with Quito.
During the incident, which took place late on Friday night, special forces equipped with a battering ram surrounded the Mexican embassy in Quito’s financial district, and at least one agent scaled the walls to extract Glas.
The 54-year-old politician is wanted on corruption charges and has been holed up inside the Mexican embassy since seeking political asylum in December.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blasted the unusual diplomatic incursion and arrest as an “authoritarian” act as well as a breach of international law and Mexico’s sovereignty, while the government of Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa argued asylum protections were illegal because of the corruption charges Glas is facing.
Still, under international law, embassies are considered the sovereign territory of the country they represent, and the Vienna Convention, which governs international relations, states that a country cannot intrude upon an embassy on its territory.
The United States also said it condemns any violation of the convention protecting diplomatic missions and encouraged “the two countries to resolve their differences in accord with international norms”.
Mexico withdraws diplomats from its embassy in Ecuador after raid
Mexico has withdrawn personnel from its embassy in Ecuador following the unprecedented storming of the building by security forces, Mexico’s Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena said.
The diplomats and their families went to Quito airport accompanied by the ambassadors of Germany, Panama, Cuba and Honduras, as well as the president of the Ecuador-Mexico Chamber, and are scheduled to travel on a commercial airline to Mexico City, the country’s foreign ministry added in a separate statement.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “alarmed” by the raid, while Spain and the European Union both issued stinging statements condemning it as a violation of the Vienna Convention.
From both articles we can tell that pretty much no one backs Ecuador here, the international protections embassies enjoy today are one of the most important in international law and if you break them you can easily become an international pariah state which in the current globalized world it can fuck you over especially if your economic policies are based on the neoliberal model like in Ecuador which dependent on the world economic system.
here in Mexico i have seen a few small personalities try to blame AMLO for the crisis but they are inconsequential clowns, all 3 presidential candidates and the PRI party have all backed the President in cutting relations with some calling for harsher santions on Ecuador, this is really good for the President's candidate Claudia Sheinbaum since any support AMLO gets she can convert in votes for her, the at the polls of January and February have her at 60% of the vote, while the next rival is only at 32%.
Also it wasnt mention in this articles but Ecuador may get suspended from Mercosur too, in the end its was terrible idea by Ecuador they propably thought they may get backed by the EUA as some people thought here but the EUA will always backed its main trade partner in the region first over a regime they may have backed in the first place, something similar happen with Guatemala in the past too.
Mexico Grants Asylum to Former Ecuadorian Vice President Glas
Mexico demands that Ecuador comply with the right to asylum and its international obligations.
On Friday, the Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary issued a statement announcing that Mexico grants political asylum to former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas.
"After a thorough analysis of the information received, the Mexican government decided to grant political asylum to Jorge Glas, who is currently at the Mexican Embassy in Quito," it said.
"This will be officially communicated to the Ecuadorian authorities, along with the request for the safe conduct, in accordance with the 1954 Diplomatic Asylum Convention, an international treaty of which Mexico and Ecuador are parties," specified Mexican diplomacy.
The Foreign Affairs Secretary pointed out that "the asylum-granting State - in this case Mexico - is the only one empowered to assess the nature of the persecution against political asylum seekers (Article IV), that its decision to continue with the asylum must be respected by the territorial State - in this case Ecuador - (Article IX) and that, once asylum is granted, the granting State may request the departure of the asylee to foreign territory, and the territorial State is obliged to immediately provide the corresponding safe conduct."
In the same communication, Mexican diplomacy regretted that its ambassador to Ecuador, Raquel Serur Smeke, had been declared persona non grata and must leave the country.
"Since presenting her credentials to the Ecuadorian State on June 18, 2019, Ambassador Serur Smeke has carried out outstanding diplomatic work in favor of deepening political dialogue between Mexico and Ecuador," it recalled.
"During her tenure... bonds were strengthened between the business sectors of both countries, and cultural exchange was intensely promoted. At all times, Ambassador Serur Smeke adhered to the principles of foreign policy established in the Mexican constitution and in international law. So the aforementioned declaration clearly has a political character."
After President Daniel Noboa declared Serur Smeke persona non grata, Ecuadorian security forces increased their presence outside the Mexican Embassy in Quito.
"This constitutes clear harassment of the Embassy and a flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. It is evident that these actions do not correspond to the usual surveillance and protection practices of diplomatic properties, based on the norms that regulate good relations between nations," the Mexican Foreign Affairs secretary stated.
"Mexico demands that Ecuador respect our sovereignty, refrain from harming the asylum right, comply with its international obligations, guarantee the inviolability of diplomatic missions, and cease the policy of harassment and intimidation. If this situation persists, Mexico holds Ecuador responsible for any harm to the diplomatic headquarters, its accredited personnel, and any person under the protection of the Mexican state," it pointed out.
On Friday, despite all of the above, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) ratified that his administration will not sever diplomatic relations with Ecuador.
"We are not going to break relations nor are we going to do the same with the ambassador of Ecuador... I gave instructions for the Mexican Air Force to bring our ambassador," he said.
Now the ports and airports are closed or dysfunctional due to constant incursions by criminal gangs, a fact that will prevent thousands of patients from continuing their treatment.
Official sources said Thursday that systematic attacks by gangs are keeping Haiti's pharmaceutical sector in check, plunged into a shortage crisis that is affecting the national health system.
The president of the Haitian Pharmacists Association, Pierre Hugues, explained that the Caribbean country depends on around 70 percent of imports of this type of product.
Now the ports and airports are closed or dysfunctional due to constant incursions by criminal gangs, a fact that will prevent thousands of patients from continuing their treatment and the entire health sector will suffer the consequences of the lack of supplies and medicines, Hugues said.
"Of the 216 laboratories that officially supply pharmacies in Haiti, only three are located in the country, the other 213 are abroad. If they do not find a way to send medicines to Haiti, the agencies will not be able to supply the pharmacies," he said.
Local laboratories - according to Le Nouvelliste newspaper - cover 25 to 30 percent of national needs, and one of them is inactive due to insecurity, and the other two are operating below their maximum capacity.
Hugues deplored the burning of more than a dozen pharmacies in Port-au-Prince by gangs in recent days.
I don't have the time to summarize this at the moment, but this piece from 2021 linked in nakedcapitalism.com on "is the PRC more financialized than the US?" is interesting. I'm curious what our local China heads have to say about this (@Kaplya@hexbear.net ?)
Original piece: https://www.cogitations.co/p/financialization-is-it-worse-in-the
Nakedcapitalism commentary https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/04/on-a-relative-scale-theres-a-strong-case-that-financialization-is-worse-in-the-prc-than-the-us.html
Peru: Governors Testify in President Boluarte's Rolexgate Case
On Friday, Dina Boluarte is expected to testify about bank deposits, jewelry, and luxury watches that were not included in her asset declaration.
On Thursday, the Attorney General's Office received testimonies from the Governor of Cusco, Wilfredo Oscorima, and the Governor of Ayacucho, Wilfredo Oscorima. This occurred amid the investigation against Peruvian President Dina Boluarte for illicit enrichment.
After a meeting that lasted more than an hour, Governor Oscorima left the Attorney General's Office without answering questions from the journalists who were awaiting him.
Previously, an investigation published by the Latina channel revealed that he purchased a Rolex watch with the same characteristics as those owned by Boluarte.
Governor Salcedo handed over two Rolex watches and said that he didn't need his "door broken down," referring to the raid on Boluarte's residence over the weekend.
"The Ayacucho governor gave me the watch because he saw that my wrist was empty. I accepted it without realizing it was a Rolex and without thinking that the cameras would focus on my wrist," Salcedo told the press and apologized for these "trivial acts."
On Friday, President Boluarte must appear before the Attorney General's Office to testify about bank deposits of unknown origin, valuable jewelry, and luxury watches that were not included in her asset declaration.
Gustavo Adrianzen, the president of the Council of Ministers, trusts that the statements will clarify what happened and hopes that the Attorney General's Office will close the investigation.
He also stated that the US$27 million appearing in the Ayacucho government's accounts come from a transfer made by the Executive Branch for the construction of a soccer stadium for the celebration of the Bicentennial Bolivarian Games.
Cool clips of Hezbollah:
Official: https://nitter.poast.org/ME_Observer_/status/1776304998286041130
Fanmade: https://nitter.poast.org/ME_Observer_/status/1776418680735182979
Fascism came to power with Javier Milei's rise to the presidency of Argentina, the Bolivarian leader said.
On Thursday, President Nicolas Maduro rejected the intentions of Argentine President Javier Milei to promote international sanctions against Venezuela.
The Bolivarian leader pointed out that Zionism, which he equated to the new fascism, came to power with Milei's rise to office.
"Milei says he will lead a crusade to have Venezuela sanctioned, surrounded, and beaten. From Caracas' neighborhoods, I say to Milei, 'You and how many others? Milei, look at yourself in Bolsonaro's mirror. Look at yourself in Macri's mirror. Anyone who messes with Venezuela, dries up," he asserted.
Previously, during an interview broadcast by CNN on March 30, the far-right Argentine politician stated that he would have no problem adopting diplomatic sanctions against Venezuela, adding that he would even be willing to convince other countries to do the same.
During the latest edition of the Maduro Podcast, the Bolivarian leader also remembered Diego Maradona, an Argentine footballer known for his progressive political stances and support for Cuba, Venezuela, Palestine, and other peoples assaulted by imperialism.
"I have a theory about Maradona's death. I believe they killed Maradona... I spoke to him on his birthday before his death and I said, 'Diego, come to Venezuela. We'll take care of you. I'm worried about you," Maduro said.
"Diego, take care of yourself. There are very bad and fascist people. They know you are the voice of the people's rebellion, the one who says what no one dares to say in Argentina and in the world," he added.
"It was an operation to end the symbols of the Argentine rebellious... They wanted to kill Diego and later Cristina Fernandez. By killing them, Argentina would be left without deep, impactful voices. That was the plan for fascism to arrive," the Venezuelan president said, ensuring that someday the truth will come to light.
Peru's National Congress denied the two motions demanding the impeachment of President Dina Boluarte.
So, I have been trying to write an article about the economy of DPRK in conjunction with this week’s COTW, but it looks like I’m not going to make it in this week’s thread.
As always, life gets in the way of posting, and it became clear to me that I don’t have as much spare time at hand as I did back in 2021-22, especially for effort posts that require extensive research and fact checking. So I’m gonna post it at some point in the next news mega thread instead.
The Country of the Week is the DPRK!
Feel free to post or recommend any books, essays, studies, articles, and even stories related to the DPRK.
If you know a lot about the country and want to share your knowledge and opinions, here are some questions to get you started if you wish:
- What is the general ideology of the political elite? Do they tend to be protectionist nationalists, or are they more free trade globalists? Are they compradors put there by foreign powers? Are they socialists with wide support by the population?
- What are the most important domestic political issues that make the country different from other places in the region or world? Are there any peculiar problems that have continued existing despite years or decades with different parties?
- Is the country generally stable? Are there large daily protests or are things calm on average? Is the ruling party/coalition generally harmonious or are there frequent arguments or even threats?
- Is there a particular country to which this country has a very impactful relationship over the years, for good or bad reasons? Which one, and why?
- What are the political factions in the country? What are the major parties, and what segments of the country do they attract?
- Are there any smaller parties that nonetheless have had significant influence? Are there notable separatist movements?
- How socially progressive or conservative is the country generally? To what degree is there equality between men and women, as well as different races and ethnic groups? Are LGBTQIA+ rights protected?
- Give a basic overview of the last 50 or 100 years. What's the historical trend of politics, the economy, social issues, etc - rise or decline? Were they always independent or were they once occupied, and how have things been since independence if applicable?
- If you want, go even further back in history. Were there any kingdoms or empires that once governed the area?
Our reading list has these books:
These books focus on the Korean War:
- This Monstrous War by Wilfred G. Burchett (1953).
- The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam (2007).
- Korea's Grievous War by Su-kyoung Hwang (2016).
- Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom by Stephen Gowans (2018).
These books focus on post-war history and politics:
- Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History by Bruce Cumings (1997).
- North Korea: Another Country by Bruce Cumings (2003).
- Understanding North Korea by Stephen Gowans - an article (2007).
For more on the DPRK, including articles and documentaries, visit the DPRK Study Guide. Also useful is Blowback Season 3 and their source list.
Honduras' 1st presidential appointee (there are 3), Salvador Nasralla, resigned this afternoon, the deadline for standing in the 2025 presidential elections. Nasralla informed the country's president, Xiomara Castro, of his resignation.
The post of presidential appointee functions as a kind of vice-presidency, but in the event of a vacancy in the office of the president, the congress must elect one of the three appointees, elected jointly with the president, to be the successor.
Ecuadorian-Mexican Crisis
The government of Ecuador, led by President Daniel Noboa, has declared Mexico's ambassador to the country persona non-grata.
This follows the Mexican president's remarks about the elections in Ecuador, which have angered the government. Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) referred in an interview to the 2023 elections in Ecuador, where radical right-wing candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated 11 days before the elections.
Obrador echoed former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa's comments that Villavicencio's murder had harmed the candidate of the Citizens' Revolution (left) in the elections, after linking the movement to the candidate's death.
The statements did not go down well with the Ecuadorian government, which not only declared the ambassador persona non-grata, but also surrounded the Mexican embassy in the country as a form of intimidation.
Does anybody know where I could find info about upcoming bridge projects that are planned in China? I want to do a case study between that and the Key Bridge reconstruction
Japanese fascists are mad about Oppenheimer (twitter link https://x.com/ajplus/status/1774869779641422289)
Obviously intentionally killing civilians is bad but it's pretty fucking rich for the Japanese to be mad about war crimes. Fascists seethe.
If I stop posting, you can blame my excited delirium
Mayor of Quito, Pabel Muñoz, explained that there will be a controlled discharge of the dammed water in the La Gasca area, where there has been damage and one person has died due to heavy rains.
Doc says I need to beat off my Beetlejuice date every two hours to prevent blood clots.
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#Tradle #760 1/6
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https://games.oec.world/en/tradlegottem
starting to recognize eastern european type economies and export sizes. Latvia seemed right
This is a completly random thought based on a meme I just saw but
I think the popular internet perception that Supernatural at the end was watched exclusively by Destiel fangirls is a perception coming from too-online brain. Ive walked in cishet circles and lemme tell you, Dean Winchester appeals to the cishet guy brain. Ive met multiple. And honestly those guys I met? Idk if they would have stood for canon Destiel lol.
Not that the writers should have caved to that lol (and also worth mentioning that Destiel not happening likely had a lot to do with Jensen's discomfort with the idea) but I think people dont really understand that Supernatural actually did appeal to straight guys quiet a bit. And the audience was not just the online fandom.
#Tradle #761 X/6
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https://games.oec.world/en/tradleSpoiler
Are you fucking joking lmao I couldn't remember any other island names, I was 16 km off with Anguilla
#Tradle #762 3/6 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 https://games.oec.world/en/tradle
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It was easy for me, being from the region
#Tradle #758 5/6
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https://games.oec.world/en/tradlereasoning
idk, broadcast equipment and stones made me think about the Galapagos and Easter Island but apparently in Joe Biden's America Ecuador and Chile respectively control them. So, idk, I tried Mauritarus, and honestly just kinda winged it from there. I figured it was by fiji cause of the large stones but I just didn't know what was and wasn't an independent country.
#Tradle #759 2/6
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Post socialist country due to the advanced capacity for electricity production and fleshed out but tiny industries and one giant extractive industry. Guessed Croatia first because wine + I vaguely remember something about a power issue happening in a Croatian power plant that made UK kettles go off at the wrong time. Ah well, anyway, it ended up being Montenegro.
#Tradle #757 3/6
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From the combination of oil and tobacco this was clearly an island nation off the Venezuelan or Guyanaen Coast; tried Grenada (¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) and then Curacao and Aruba
First to tradle post
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Looked to be post-soviet/Eastern Bloc (advanced manufacturing and resource extraction). Started further south because of the palm oil.
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I didn't expect a country from that part of the world to export mainly natural sources
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I love my cat so much. She busted into the bathroom chasing a bug, paused for pets, then viciously gave a 1-2 combo and started washing herself.
some of you are alright, don't go to tel aviv tomorrow
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Bernie's Vermont office.
