this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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back in my map era, we're ukrainemaxxing right now


Declarations of the imminent doom of Ukraine are a news megathread specialty, and this is not what I am doing here - mostly because I'm convinced that whenever we do so, the war extends another three months to spite us. Ukraine has been in an essentially apocalyptic crisis for over a year now after the failure of the 2023 counteroffensive, unable to make any substantial progress and resigned to merely being a persistent nuisance (and arms market!) as NATO fights to the last Ukrainian. In this context, predicting a terminal point is difficult, as things seem to always be going so badly that it's hard to understand how and why they fight on. In every way, Ukraine is a truly shattered country, barely held together by the sheer combined force of Western hegemony. And that hegemony is weakening.

I therefore won't be giving any predictions of a timeframe for a Ukrainian defeat, but the coming presidency of Trump is a big question mark for the conflict. Trump has talked about how he wishes for the war to end and for a deal to be made with Putin, but Trump also tends to change his mind on an issue at least three or four times before actually making a decision, simply adopting the position of who talked to him last. And, of course, his ability to end the war might be curtailed by a military-industrial complex (and various intelligence agencies) that want to keep the money flowing.

The alignment of the US election with the accelerating rate of Russian gains is pretty interesting, with talk of both escalation and de-escalation coinciding - the former from Biden, and the latter from Trump. Russia very recently performed perhaps the single largest aerial attack of Ukraine of the entire war, striking targets across the whole country with missiles and drones from various platforms. In response, the US is talking about allowing Ukraine to hit long-range targets in Russia (but the strategic value of this, at this point, seems pretty minimal).

Additionally, Russia has made genuine progress in terms of land acquisition. We aren't talking about endless and meaningless battles over empty fields anymore. Some of the big Ukrainian strongholds that we've been spending the last couple years speculating over - Chasiv Yar, Kupiansk, Orikhiv - are now being approached and entered by Russian forces. The map is actually changing now, though it's hard to tell as Ukraine is so goddamn big.

Attrition has finally paid off for Russia. An entire generation of Ukrainians has been fed into the meat grinder. Recovery will take, at minimum, decades - more realistically, the country might be permanently ruined, until that global communist revolution comes around at least. And they could have just made a fucking deal a month into the war.


Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA 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.
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.

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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.


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[–] [email protected] 126 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Everyone should read this post on how finance, bonds and the power of the US dollar actually works by @[email protected]. This is a highly readable and clear description of arcane and opaque mechanisms that are critical to appreciate to have a good understanding of modern imperialism.

Please respond in that subthread, not here.

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 1 month ago (2 children)

FIFA and UEFA to uphold ban on Russia from participating in international competitions at least until the 2026 FIFA World Cup

Meanwhile, FIFA and UEFA member "israel" killed a fuckton of FIFA-registered palestinian players in Gaza, dismantling a FIFA-regulated tournament in the process as well. You can sit comfortably waiting for them to take action against the zionist entity.

death to "israel"

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (16 children)

More than one-third of American-Jewish teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18 agree with the statement, "I sympathise with Hamas"

vs

A majority, 66 percent, said that they sympathise with the Palestinian people as a whole.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/one-third-american-jewish-teens-say-they-sympathise-hamas-israeli-government-poll-shows

Young american jews support the resistance in great numbers.

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[–] [email protected] 104 points 1 month ago (18 children)
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[–] [email protected] 104 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

https://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1858019192370507904

Wow, looks like Xi was extremely straightforward during his meeting with Biden, probably the most he's ever officially been in a meeting with a US president.

According to the Chinese readout (https://www.guancha.cn/internation/2024_11_17_755645.shtml) here's what he told Biden were the 7 "lessons of the past 4 years that need to be remembered":

  1. "There must be correct strategic understanding. The 'Thucydides Trap' is not historical destiny, a 'new Cold War' cannot and should not be fought, containment of China is unwise, undesirable, and will not succeed."
  1. "Words must be trustworthy and actions must be fruitful. A person cannot stand without credibility. China always follows through on its words, but if the U.S. side always says one thing and does another, it is very detrimental to America's image and damages mutual trust."
  1. "Treat each other as equals. In exchanges between two major countries like China and the United States, neither side can reshape the other according to their own wishes, nor can they suppress the other based on so-called 'position of strength,' let alone deprive the other of legitimate development rights to maintain their own leading position."
  1. "Red lines and bottom lines cannot be challenged. As two major countries, China and the United States inevitably have some contradictions and differences, but they cannot harm each other's core interests, let alone engage in conflict and confrontation. The One China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués are the political foundation of bilateral relations and must be strictly observed. Taiwan issue, democracy and human rights, development path, and development rights are China's four red lines, which cannot be challenged. These are the most important guardrails and safety nets for China-US relations."
  1. "There should be more dialogue and cooperation. Under current circumstances, the common interests between China and the United States have not decreased but increased. Whether in areas of economy and trade, agriculture, drug control, law enforcement, public health, or in facing global challenges such as climate change and artificial intelligence, as well as international hotspot issues, China-US cooperation is needed. Both sides should extend the list of cooperation, make the cooperation cake bigger, and achieve win-win cooperation."
  1. "Respond to people's expectations. The development of China-US relations should always focus on the wellbeing of both peoples and gather the strength of both peoples. Both sides should build bridges for personnel exchanges and cultural communication, and also remove interference and obstacles, not artificially create a 'chilling effect.'"
  1. "Demonstrate great power responsibility. China and the United States should always consider the future and destiny of humanity, take responsibility for world peace, provide public goods for the world, and play a positive role in world unity, including engaging in positive interaction, avoiding mutual consumption, and not coercing other countries to take sides."

Funnily, all this is summarized in the official US readout (https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/readout-of-president-joe-bidens-meeting-with-president-xi-jinping-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china-3/) with this short sentence: "The two leaders reviewed the bilateral relationship over the past four years". Talk about an understatement 😅. The language compared to the readout of the last Xi-Biden meeting in San Francisco one year ago is noticeably more forthright, especially on the U.S.'s lack of trustworthiness ("if the U.S. side always says one thing and does another..."). Looks like he's getting very frustrated with U.S. duplicity... The 4 red lines he enumerates are also new (not new individually as they've each been mentioned before, but packaging them together as "four red lines" and explicitly labeling them as such in a president-level diplomatic readout is new)

...

With the red lines on "Democracy and human rights" and "Development path/system", it looks like China is effectively telling the U.S. it will not humor them anymore in discussions about its internal system and so-called "human rights", and that it will consider any U.S. initiative aimed at interfering with China's internal affairs or otherwise shape China as hostile actions on the same level as Taiwan. This is also clear with Xi telling Biden that "neither side can reshape the other according to their own wishes".

On development rights Xi states that "the Chinese people's right to development cannot be deprived or ignored" and criticizes how "while all countries have national security needs, the concept shouldn't be overgeneralized or used as an excuse for malicious restrictions and suppression". He also said that "great power competition should not be the theme of the era; unity and cooperation are needed to overcome difficulties together. 'Decoupling and breaking chains" is not the solution; mutually beneficial cooperation is the path to common development. 'Small yards with high fences' is not befitting of great powers."

In other words, he's telling Biden that he believes the U.S. is attempting to curtail China's development in the guise of national security, but that this is "an excuse for malicious restrictions and suppression" and a red line as China has a fundamental right to develop as any other country. This is all, of course, also signaling to the upcoming Trump administration. The fact these are "red lines" means they're non-negotiable regardless of who leads the US: he's telling Trump too that attempts to "reshape" China or restrict its development will be viewed as hostile actions. And the emphasis on US "saying one thing and doing another" also puts the future administration on notice that China will judge the US by its actions rather than its diplomatic statements.

Conclusion: by framing these positions as "lessons learned" from the past four years, Xi is effectively closing the book on one approach to US-China relations - which he's obviously very critical about - and very clearly signaling to Trump a change is badly needed, particularly around the "4 red lines" and matching words with actions. The language is very confident, telling the U.S. they need to "treat each other as equals" and that they have no "position of strength" anymore. The US readout on this, as usual for the Biden administration, is very illustrative of exactly what Xi is complaining about: a complete disregard for China's stance on these issues and a refusal to engage with them, or even mention them at all. Not sure that "America first" Trump and the team of China hawks he put together will be much better...

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (9 children)

Gangs looting Gaza aid operate in areas under Israeli control, aid groups say

A U.N. memo obtained by The Post concluded that gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from Israel’s military.

One gang leader, the memo said, established a “military like compound” in an area “restricted, controlled and patrolled by the IDF.”

Israel is stealing what little aid they "let through".

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And they could have just made a fucking deal a month into the war.

marx-doomer

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (12 children)

Handala, an Iranian hacker group, in revenge for the killing of Yahya Sinwar, hacked the infamous 'Israeli' 8200 intelligence unit and released the info of over 35,000 Mossad, Shin Bet and other security establishment employees.

PDF of the leak: https://files.catbox.moe/3l1lkm.pdf

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 1 month ago (17 children)

How it started: I WILL NOT MAKE DEALS WITH COMMUNISTS

How it ended:

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Israel levelled multiple multi storey apartment buildings in Beirut, Lebanon last night/early this morning, and the scenes are apocalyptic. No evacuation order was given for this bombing, many were sleeping in the early hours of the morning when the buildings that they were sleeping in were destroyed. Hundreds of probable casualties.

Daytime footage twitter and xcancel mirror

Night search footage twitter and xcancel mirror

Ground view of night search footage, to put the scale of destruction into perspective twitter and xcancel mirror

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[–] [email protected] 99 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (32 children)

Educational post: here we will debunk the myth of China’s dollar-denominated bonds in Saudi Arabia for those who are interested in learning about how the system actually works, and those who need a little help with connecting the dots.

A few months ago, some multipolar bloggers were jumping up and down about Saudi Arabia “ending its 50-year petrodollar contract” and how that is going to “end dollar hegemony” (I already wrote a whole post debunking that). Today we see the same people saying that China issuing dollar-denominated bonds in Saudi Arabia is actually genius and how that’s going to “end dollar hegemony”. So which one is it?

The answer is neither, and far simpler than you think. But to even be able to answer this question, we need to learn a bit about the fundamentals of the financial system, and especially to debunk the many misconceptions about the role of US treasury.

Don’t worry, I have deliberately stripped all technical jargons from this post, so anyone will be able to understand even if you know nothing about banking and finance. This post is meant to be educational - I firmly believe that learning about how the economy and the financial system operate can shield us from falling for right wing propaganda, and that is my goal of spending many hours writing this post here.

First, let’s lay out the main misconceptions that have been perpetuated on social media about the China’s dollar bond in Saudi Arabia, and what questions do we need to answer:

  1. The misconception that the US government is financed by its treasury bonds (China is issuing dollar bonds at nearly the same rates, so investors will buy China bonds instead of US treasury bonds, so the US government can no longer finance its spending)
    • Question: What is the role of US treasuries?
  2. A wild extrapolation that a $2 billion bond issuance somehow serves as a prelude to China issuing a $100 billion dollar bond which will then subvert the entire US treasury market.
    • Question: What can a $100 billion dollar bond do if China issues that?
  3. The mental gymnastics involved to craft a narrative about why China issuing its bond in dollar in Saudi Arabia is actually good and that somehow is going to help the BRI countries pay back their dollar debt.
    • Questions: What is the intent behind China issuing dollar-denominated bond in Saudi Arabia? Can it really help Belt and Road countries pay back their dollar debt?

Let’s go through this point by point.

What is the role of US treasuries?

expand

Many people will tell you that a government needs to borrow (treasury issuing bonds/securities) to finance its spending. Here, we see the same narrative that if everyone stops buying US treasuries, the US government would not be able to finance its imperialism.

This is no different than the popular neoliberal myth perpetuated by both the Republicans and the Democrats that “we have to cut our spending and bring our deficits down because we have borrowed trillions of dollars from China!”

What they really mean is that “we have to cut funding to this and that public utilities and services so all the wealth can be concentrated to the top 0.1%”. In other words, myths like this allow the ruling class to institute austerity on the working people, otherwise “your children and grandchildren will become debt slaves to China who owns our country and they have to work so much harder to pay back our debt to China!”

Let’s dispel this myth once and for all by learning about where did this myth even comes from.

Do government have to borrow to finance its spending?

You see, a long time ago when governments peg their currencies to gold (or under Bretton Woods from 1944-1971, to US dollar which is in turn pegged to gold), they run on a fixed exchange rate. This means that the government promises that its currency can be exchanged for gold (or dollar) at a certain price. If the government cannot keep that promise, they will have to default, or depreciate the value of their currency (exchange rate goes down, imports become more expensive).

A main attraction of pegging your currency to a stable metal like gold, or another stable currency like the dollar, is that it helps boost the confidence and usage of your currency. This was especially true for post-war European countries after their economies had been wrecked by WWII, and those governments desperately needed their citizens to use their currencies again (that were worth very little because the productive capacities had been destroyed) instead of foreign currencies. And so during the Bretton Woods conference, they decided that their governments would peg their currencies to the dollar, and the dollar itself to gold, with the hopes that this will help stabilize the currency exchange rate and hence the development of their economies.

However, there is a huge problem when you run on a fixed exchange rate - you need to have a reserve of the metal/foreign currency in order to defend this exchange rate, and this quickly becomes a problem when it comes to fiscal operations (government spending):

Let’s say you are a government with $100 billion worth of gold reserve, and have issued $100 billion of your currency to circulate the economy. Now, you want to spend $10 billion to build new hospitals for the country, to improve the healthcare standards for the people. Of course, you can just print $10 billion and credit the bank accounts of contractors, raw material suppliers and manufacturers and let them get to work, but you will now have $110 billion circulating the economy with only $100 billion worth of gold reserve, and this is a problem because you do not have enough reserve to defend the fixed exchange rate you have set.

You have several options here:

One, you can increase gold supply

  • search and dig for more gold
  • purchase gold by exporting your goods and services made using your labor and resources to countries that have a lot of gold
  • steal the gold by colonizing or invading other countries who have them

Two, you will have to somehow take $10 billion currency away from the economy.

There are two common ways to do this - first, increase the taxes so you can subtract $10 billion from the economy, which brings monetary base down to $90 billion, and this frees up the space for you to issue a new $10 billion currencies to build the new hospitals.

This is where the popular misconception that taxes finance government budget come from. But as you can see, the taxes really only serve the purpose of taking money out of the circulation so new money can be added to finance new projects. Those taxed money are instead destroyed in the central bank, contrary to the popular myth that they are being used to finance government spending.

Governments that can issue their own money don’t need your taxes - why would they do that if they can already print them? The purpose of taxation is to drive the value of your currency (you are forced to earn the currency because you have to pay taxes with them), and to re-distribute wealth within the society (rich people accumulating too much wealth? Tax them away so they don’t grow too powerful, not because the government needs to be financed by billionaires - of course this does not apply in governments that have been captured by the wealthy elites, but the concept of the power of the State still applies)

The second way is to issue government securities/bonds (in the US, this is known as the US treasury bills/notes/bonds). Instead of taking away your money which many people hate, here the government says: ”hey what if you give me some of your money and I’ll keep them safe for you and in a few years’ time when they mature, I’ll pay you back with interests?”

As you can see, the function of a government bond is the same as taxes - taking money out of circulation, except that instead of the money getting destroyed through taxation, your money is being safekept in a special government savings account (the government’s version of certificate of deposit) and you are not allowed to use them until the bond matures. Then you get your money back with interests.

Because the government is technically “borrowing” from you, this is known as government debt, and you are the creditor lending money to the government. This is where the popular misconception that government debt finances government spending comes from. But really, they just want to take some money out of the circulation so they can defend their exchange rate during new budget spending.

And finally, if the government cannot fulfill its promise of exchanging their currency at the price they have set with reference to gold/dollar, they will have to default, or depreciate the value of their currency.

The above was how they roll during the fixed exchange rate era, and where all these misconceptions about US treasuries comes from.

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[–] [email protected] 99 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

around a dozen inmates have set themselves on fire over the last year or so to try to get transferred out of virginia's supermax Red Onion prison after facing horrific racism and violence. three men interviewed intentionally set their legs or feet on fire knowing that there aren't any burn centers in that part of the state and they would have to be sent to Richmond for treatment

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[–] [email protected] 99 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The NYT has leaked a story by accidentally CC'ing Electronic Intifada.

Apparently, they killed a "visual investigation" into the recent Israeli hooligans in the Netherlands, presumably because it would go against their narrative of anti-Semitism at the event. Keep in mind that it was the Times that recently claimed a video of Israeli fans attacking a Dutch citizen was the opposite.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Seems like the nyt journalist whose story got squashed definitely leaked it on purpose, right?

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I happened to notice a Reddit article about Bird Flu and all the libs are just blaming Trump. He isn't even president and Biden has been ignoring the bird flu for over a year now, with articles coming out every month about how Biden is doing NOTHING.

BlueMAGA is already getting incredibly powerful, I am now becoming hopeful that there will be a liberal Jan 6th.

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 1 month ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 month ago (18 children)

A guy on Iraqi Telegram went viral for trying to start a boycott campaign against businesses that employ non-Iraqis. He calls himself a far right Iraqi who is angry about Syrian and Lebanese people taking jobs from Iraqis. Literally every medium-sized restaurant has non-Iraqis working there lol. He's also mad that the football national team has a half-Pakistani player, because the advanced Semitic Iraqi race should not procreate with the lesser races. Everyone dunked on him and called him a loser, happy that this brainrot hasn't penetrated Iraq yet. His Telegram page made it to 500 followers before getting trolled to closure. Btw, I'm making an Iraq trip with my wife and the kid in the spring, you'll get a full report in the news mega when it's time.

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 month ago

'Same dog with a different leash,' says Che Guevara's daughter about Trump's victory in the US election

Telesur Aleida Guevara expresó preocupación por reciente actitud de Lula hacia Venezuela

On Trump and Brazil vs Venezuela

What about the change of government in the United States, with the Democrats leaving and the Republicans returning to power? Will anything change for Cubans?

We say it's the same dog with a different leash. The thing is, this man [Donald Trump] is crazy. We don't know what he can do. Maybe he'll come out saying that, since he's a businessman, he wants to do business with Cuba, but who knows? Because that's how this man is – he's unpredictable. But in any case, it's a danger, a serious danger, not only for Cuba, but for humanity, since that country [the United States] has destructive power and now that power will be in the hands of a man who doesn't think, which can be very dangerous.

Brazil's position after the presidential elections in Venezuela has been questioned by popular movements here in Brazil and in Latin America, because it questions the security of the electoral process. How do you assess this position?

It only benefits the enemy. It makes me very sad. I'm really ashamed that Lula has fallen into this situation. Firstly, because he has just acknowledged that he doesn't even have the right to express an opinion on another country's problems, because he wouldn't want us, or any other country in the world, to express an opinion on Brazil. So, if you don't like a behavior, how can you do that to someone else? It's a basic principle of coexistence – pure and simple. They may have their own criteria and way of seeing the world, which must be respected. I don't have anything to say about that. However, you have to respect them. You have to learn to respect your neighbors, even if you don't like them. For example, we [Cubans] want to have relations with the United States, even though we have nothing to do with their government. We can make an effort and show solidarity. Respect other countries, as long as they respect us, because that's a mutual principle. If you want respect, you have to learn to respect. It's as simple as that.

That's why it hurts so much. Brazil's position regarding BRICS also hurts, because the country refuses to allow Venezuela to join the group. This is unprecedented. Brazil is simply playing into the hands of the United States of America, the enemy of all our peoples. Lula isn’t an ordinary president; he is a president who comes from grassroots movements, someone who comes from trade union struggles. So, Lula has to know what he's doing. This is very painful for us, I mean it. It hurts us deeply and Lula's attitude towards Venezuela disappointed us.

[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (13 children)

The claimed number of North Koreans is now at six figures and rising.

agony

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 month ago (10 children)

The Hīkoi mō te Tiriti arrived in Wellington NZ today. The haka went viral the other day, but this is the bigger story of the public mobilisation against the bill introduced by our right-wing, reactionary, ACT party.

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I forgot I was on Hexbear for a moment and was very confused as to why I was reading a reasonable breakdown of the situation in Ukraine.

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 month ago (4 children)

The latest TrueAnon episode with Seth harp on Afghanistan opium is very worth listening to. It covers the role of the Taliban and of the US in world opium production and distribution. Apparently, the 2000s saw the amount of opium production in Afghanistan increase by a factor of 50x or so, to the point that world supply increased by 10-20x. Absolutely staggering hearing Seth lay out the connection between invasion, waste of lives and money, in service of turning a country into a narco state. Just brutal.

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I posted this in the dying hours of the last thread and I think it is funny enough to repost

What a contrast here

A few days ago a new Chinese built port was inaugurated by xi

In an opinion article in the El Peruano state newspaper, Xi said the Chancay project would generate $4.5 billion in annual revenues, create more than 8,000 direct jobs and reduce the logistics costs of the Peru-China route by 20%.

China's main motivation for developing the megaport, according to Ocharan, was access to neighboring Brazil, where a new railway line is planned to carry Brazilian exports such as soybeans and iron ore to the port.

The rail project is estimated to cost $3.5 billion, according to Mario de las Casas, corporate affairs manager at Cosco Shipping Chancay Peru.

And then this, Blinken announcing that the US is contributing to a new rail line in lima

Which is actually caltrain selling lima some 40 year old diesel train parts for $6m

Definitely a deal worthy of rocking in the free world

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 month ago (12 children)

71-year old isntreali mythologist eliminated in Gaza. He fought against the resistance in the first intifada and dedicated his life to legitimizing the apartheid state. He will not be missed, rest in piss

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Statement from President Joe Biden on Warrants Issued by the International Criminal Court

"The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security."

This shit is beyond parody.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 month ago (2 children)

there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.

Yes.

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (19 children)

Weapons grade copium: EU to demand technology transfers from Chinese companies

Brussels is planning to force Chinese companies to transfer intellectual property to European businesses in return for EU subsidies as part of a tougher trade regime for clean technologies. New criteria requiring Chinese businesses to have factories in Europe and share technological knowhow will be introduced when Brussels invites bids for €1bn of grants to develop batteries in December, according to two senior EU officials. The pilot could be rolled out to other EU subsidy schemes, they said. The requirements, while at much smaller scale, echo China’s own regime, which pressures foreign companies into sharing their intellectual property in exchange for access to the Chinese market. The criteria could be subject to change ahead of the tender, officials said. The plans represent part of a hardening stance from Europe towards China as it seeks to protect companies in the bloc — subject to strict environmental regulations — from being undercut by cheap and more polluting imports.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 1 month ago (5 children)

user squarecoats1 on twitter has made a map with all of the contractors and subcontractors in the US involved in many of the weapons and materiel being used in the genocide, including hellfire missiles and F35s. there's a lot of nitty gritty details in here, nearly 700 locations on the map, tracking who makes even the smallest parts of some of this stuff. they have also included a spreadsheet with the raw data that users can pore through since the site where they uploaded the map only allows 1000 visitors per month. pretty interesting

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 1 month ago (15 children)

In massive bloomer/too good to be true news:
https://xcancel.com/ChenKojira/status/1859658593588613336

China has developed a surgical cure for alzheimers

China successfully invented a surgery for curing Alzheimer’s disease. Known as LVA surgery, it is performned on neck lymphatics. So far, there have been 42 clinical trials, all have been successes.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 1 month ago (1 children)

https://xcancel.com/Pal_action/status/1860030550951825519

BREAKING: Elbit Systems UK loses its biggest contract worth over £2billion, as the Ministry of Defence scraps the Watchkeeper drone project.

This comes after sustained direct action caused severe disruption to Leicester's Israeli weapons factory, the site leading the production.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 1 month ago (9 children)

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/18/world/hong-kong-democracy-leaders-sentencing-intl-hnk/index.html

Joshua Wong shouts ‘I love Hong Kong’ as more than 40 leading democracy leaders handed lengthy prison terms in mass trial

Hong Kong CNN — More than 40 of Hong Kong’s best known pro-democracy figures have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 10 years on subversion charges, in the biggest single blow to the city’s already shrinking political freedoms following Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on dissent.

Most only got several years. One guy got ten for being a central organizer.

Individual Jan 6 rioters got 20 years just for hitting a cop.

Spain sentenced Catalans to up to 40 years for doing exactly what Tai did (minus the violent rioting.)

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[–] [email protected] 88 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Support for deportation of illegal immigrants can vary from 62% to 33% depending on how the question is asked

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[–] [email protected] 88 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (13 children)

The Hill Op-Ed: World War III is now Trump’s to lose

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/5000642-trump-world-war-iii/

Negotiations with Russia would be futile. History tells us that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words are meaningless. Anything short of a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine and the restoration of their 1991 borders would be a victory for the Kremlin.

The defeat of Russian forces is the best outcome, and precision deep-strike weapons are a vital part of that outcome. Now is the time to invoke General Ulysses S. Grant — to close with and destroy the enemy, applying relentless pressure until they capitulate.

Bruh, these libs really want us all to die

by Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet,

Deeply unserious country.

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 month ago (10 children)
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[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I have to put my trust entirely on Putin and the Russian ruling class to not escalate this to a nuclear war, huh

Why shouldn't I wish death on all NATO supporters at this point?

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 month ago (2 children)

BadEmpanada pointed out something very funny about Netanyahu/Gallant ICC arrest warrant. They used Biden's strongly-worded letter to Israel and the corresponding increase in aid as further evidence of Israel's crimes. It proves that Israel has the capacity to deliver food to Gaza but deliberately choses not to. joever

The Chamber also noted that decisions allowing or increasing humanitarian assistance into Gaza were often conditional. They were not made to fulfil Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law or to ensure that the civilian population in Gaza would be adequately supplied with goods in need. In fact, they were a response to the pressure of the international community or requests by the United States of America. In any event, the increases in humanitarian assistance were not sufficient to improve the population’s access to essential goods.

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 1 month ago (25 children)

Betting pool

  • Russia strikes a Polish supply depot near the Ukrainian border
  • Decapitation strike that kills Zelenskyy
  • Houthis get a carrier killer
  • Cuba gets the bomb again
  • atmospheric nuke test
  • “did I say a red line? It’s more of a red guideline.”
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[–] [email protected] 84 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Yemen has struck a Turkish container ship for the first time
EDIT: Forgot to add since it's probably obvious but the ship was sailing to Israel

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

Just the BYD Zhengzhou Gigafactory, currently under expansion, compared to the biggest Tesla factory. It actualy can fit every single Tesla factory in it with room to spare. Its already like, a third of the size of Manhattan. The plant 70k workers in 2024.

An angle from the ground, dont know from when. Bunch of wind turbines on the background tho.

A video of the immense construction going on for the expansion as well

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 month ago (10 children)

BYD has now produced 10 million electric and hybrid cars.

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 month ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (17 children)

https://xcancel.com/parismarx/status/1859651117250208115

Trudeau says Canada will arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they enter Canada.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 month ago

All the worst people in the world are very, VERY mad about the ICC warrants, thus the warrants are incredibly based and cool.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (11 children)

CNN - Accident or sabotage? American and European officials disagree as key undersea cables are cut

My “sometimes two undersea cables just do that simultaneously” t-shirt has a lot of people asking questions answered by my shirt.

The two cables – the BCS East-West connecting Lithuanian and Sweden and the C-Lion1 linking Finland with Germany – were suddenly disrupted on Sunday and Monday.

European leaders were quick to voice their suspicions. Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that “nobody believes that these cables were accidentally severed.”

The foreign ministers of Finland and Germany said in a joint statement that they were “deeply concerned” about the incident and raised the possibility that it was part of a “hybrid warfare,” specifically mentioning Russia in their statement.

But two US officials familiar with the initial assessment of the incident told CNN on Tuesday the damage was not believed to be deliberate activity by Russia or any other nation.

Instead, the two officials told CNN they believed it likely caused by an anchor drag from a passing vessel. Such accidents have happened in the past, although not in a quick succession like the two on Sunday and Monday.

They fucking did it to them again.

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 month ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 month ago (11 children)

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Korea wrote an article published on 10th of October.

"A detestable criminal country that needs to be swept away in a day."

Israel's genocidal campaign against Palestinians, which began in October last year, has continued year after year, and its means and methods have reached a point beyond human imagination, drawing the ire of the international community.

According to Palestine's Wafa news agency, Israel's rogue regime, which has no regard for international law and humanitarian principles, recently shocked the world by devising a “bill” to restrict the activities of the UNRWA, with the aim of massacring innocent Palestinians once again.

It is not enough that Israel has massacred more than 42,000 Palestinians and displaced more than 1.9 million Palestinians, more than 90% of the Palestinians in Gaza, in the past year since the outbreak of the Gaza crisis, but the Israeli criminal justice system's anti-humanitarian blockade of UNRWA, which is aimed at completely exterminating an entire people, is a heinous act of human rights abuses and a despicable war crime.

The murderers, who are ruthlessly depriving people of their human rights, the most important of which is the right to survival, and plotting to cut off the last link of the refugees, and the unscrupulous human white elephants, who are toasting and laughing at the spectacle of bombing the inhabited areas of Gaza, are grossly violating humanity's right to survival and development by expanding the scope of mass destruction to neighboring countries.

The international community is outraged that Israel, a dysfunctional country that ignores even the rudimentary notion of human rights and promotes extreme hateful ideas, and a country where criminals who take pleasure in human blood should never have existed on Earth in the first place.

All justice- and peace-oriented nations and progressive movements must unite to firmly defend human justice, conscience, and world peace by decisively stopping Israel's criminal atrocities and expelling this cancerous cancer of human society from the face of the earth".

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 month ago (7 children)

I've been reading about Morocco recently, mostly inspired by Rania's anti-Morocco posting here. I have a massive blindspot when it comes to the history of the Maghreb countries, I literally know nothing about these countries outside of the Sahara issue and the Algerian Liberation War. Very interesting history, but it's hard to come out with any conclusion other than wanting to Minecraft the entire royal family. The amount of collusion and treachery is ridiculous, disgusting state on all possible levels. I'll give them points for building nice infrastructure and making Morocco a generally nice place to live in, but all that progress doesn't happen without complete submission and humiliation to Western capital. We need a Morocco COTW theme in the near future so that I can shit on Morocco even more.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 month ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

over 100 rockets, drones and cruise missiles (!) launched into Israel (Haifa, Tel Aviv, and more) over the last 18 hours. Too many for one post but this channel has updates

https://t.me/LebUpdate/48082

https://t.me/PalCommie/4141

Nasrallah’s Organs https://t.me/PalCommie/4150

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 month ago (4 children)

i signed up for another reddit account after getting a 2nd ip ban (doesn't do shit btw) and was shocked by how much CIA propaganda there was on the frontpage even though i chose vietnam and standup comedy as things i wanted to see (i picked random topics)

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 month ago (6 children)

https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1guyz3k/ru_pov_lavrov_explains_that_atacms_cannot_be/

Lavrov confirms the red line has been crossed, the war has entered a "qualitatively new phase", and Russia will "react accordingly".

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