news

Reminder that this is what Korea looked like before China's intervention. It's not too late if Iran is already preparing to go in balls-to-the-wall, but I have a feeling they aren't.

good on them for convening the parliament at 2AM. i would have honk shooed through it.

The TikTok ban law has been upheld. Is it joever for TikTok in ?

The words carved into the casings answer something I was wondering, which is "why didn't this apprent professional just stroll up behind the ghoul, put one in the back of his head and keep walking?" Apparently, the answer is that the plan called for three shots.

On the other hand, we don’t really know if this was actually a politically motivated hit. I think it could just as easily be a rival healthcare company or some other shady business dealings that led to a hitman hired to take him out. I’m not sure which I think is more likely tbh

Today's MoA is worth reading and certified chud-brainworm free

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/12/craig-murray-the-end-of-pluralism-in-the-middle-east-.html#more

A truly seismic change in the Middle East appears to be happening very fast. At its heart is a devil’s bargain – Turkey and the Gulf States accept the annihilation of the Palestinian nation and creation of a Greater Israel, in return for the annihilation of the Shia minorities of Syria and Lebanon and the imposition of Salafism across the Eastern Arab world.

What this all potentially amounts to is the end of pluralism in the Levant and its replacement by supremacism. An ethno-supremacist Greater Israel and a religio-supremacist Salafist Greater Syria.

"Iraq will not just be a mere spectator in Syria"

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iraq-will-not-be-just-spectator-syria-prime-minister-says-2024-12-03/

Mercouris is saying that Wagner has been sent to Syria under Russian military supervision to help stabilize the situation there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcQ7rYMiDzI

He talks about information coming to light that militant cells had apparently been infiltrating Aleppo for months in preparation for this attack, which explains why it took the Syrian government by surprise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbAjKefPYKY

Excellent analysis by a Syrian living in Germany with sources in Syria, he also shares frustration with the Pezeshkian government and its naivety, along with the Arabic world. This is from shortly before the fall of Aleppo but is still all applicable, and he stated it was a strong possibility. Hezbollah agreed to the ceasefire due to existential issues, it knows another round of fighting is upcoming soon and need to take a breather to regroup. They are fixing issues with their internal security, communications, leadership and securing their position in Lebanon. They are in a dangerous and precarious position. They are not abandoning Palestine, they have depleted their resources and capabilities to dangerous levels and are unwilling to completely commit organizational suicide. They are competent fighters but cannot afford the escalation to wholesale slaughter of civilians by the tens of thousands that Israelis were willing to do, they must rethink their strategy and secure their alliances.

Free Syria? More like Syria being freely annexed by "Israel"...

They didn't wait even for one second, it's almost as if they had it all figured out beforehand. That's the way they operate, the most disgusting country in the world..

Not sure why all the dooming. Looks like Homs is holding for now.

Hebrew media reports that a group of Israeli soldiers accidentally entered a minefield on the Lebanon border, leading to an explosion that injured eight of them in 'Ras al-Naqoura.'

Wtf?

Israel carried out several airstrikes against buildings in Damascus, including the passport & migration office

The Korea arc has begun. Biden really wants to fire off everything.

The People's party have emerged as kingmakers in the next government of Iceland.

The only workable coalitions must include them to get a majority in parliament.

We have the blessed option of S - C - F

and the cursed D - F - M

S and C hate D and M, so it's up to F to choose what happens. The party leaders of S C and F have already started informal talks and political flirting in the media.

People are also talking about the three left wing parties, Socialists, Pirates, Left greens, that did not cross the 5% threshold to access the voting district equalization system, leaving 20.000 voters without constituents. There have been talks of uniting the parties and/or lowering the threshold.

Le Pen unimpressed with Macron's end of the deal, no-confidence vote imminent.

Yoav Gallant is in New York City today. Our masked hero has the opportunity to become the stuff of legends…

Yemen's Ansarullah have announced that, in cooperation with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, they attacked a 'vital target' in the south of Israel using drones.

Lee Jae-myung, leader of South Korea's opposition party denounces newly-imposed martial law as 'illegal.' He declared Yoon Suk-yeol "no longer the president" of South Korea. Lee called on the public to gather at the National Assembly.

South Korean special forces are storming the National Parliament building after the president declared an emergency martial law. The Biden Administration says it’s in touch with South Korea and is “monitoring the situation closely” after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law declaration.

I saw some right-wing South Koreans saying Lee blocking Yoon in congress was a coup and Yoon is totally a pro-democracy guy. Things do not look good in South Korea, we will see how long this will last, but it seems like Yoon is pushing South Korea into a civil-war.

It appears that yoon isn't going to be impeached today

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2024-12-07/south-korea-president-speech

One ruling party lawmaker entered and voted, and the opposition peers cheered him.

Kim Sang-wook, a ruling party lawmaker who voted, says he didn’t support the impeachment motion against President Yoon Suk Yeol, chilling a crowd that had applauded him until a moment ago. Yet he says Yoon doesn’t deserve to be president, as he tearfully recalled armed forces descending down on the parliament, live footage shows.

[He] adds that his party should pivot and support impeachment against Yoon in the next bid unless the president takes an action that would reassure the public by then. The reason he took part in the vote even though he opposed the impeachment is that it was part of his mandate as a legislator, he said.

lmao

South Korea’s acting defense minister has summoned a meeting of top military commanders, News1 reports. It didn’t give details.

The military meeting is to remind commanders that they should stay ready at all times to protect the people against security risks, Nocut News reports, citing the defense ministry. It appears to be a move by the military to salvage its standing and reputation after being involved in the martial-law debacle.

usually i can get this from wikipedia, but besides the military i am not clear what the president of the ROK is actually in charge of. if anyone can give a quick primer for a framework of what the Pres can do (legally)

The dooming on Hexbear whenever major geopolitical events happen is crazy

Forgive me if I don't condemn Russia/China/Iran/etc for not dropping everything to go save Assad of all people

Tsunami warning for the United States West Coast, in the last half hour:

Also, a tsunami warning has been issued for coastal areas in California and Oregon, including San Francisco. The warning will remain in effect from Davenport, California, to Douglas/Lane Line Oregon, until further notice, the National Tsunami Warning Center said.

Source: ABC News

I know a lot of our users live in that area, so I thought I'd post it.

Not entirely sure how much I should share, but NARA IWW (North America as a whole) just finished their elections.

Like with any collapse, i imagine a critical mass of people decided a corrupt, disintegrating status quo just wasn’t worth trying to save anymore, even despite the alternative. Doesn’t necessarily mean Syria will be a new Afghanistan. Although Afghanistan is an interesting example, because the Taliban did not arise out of the Mujahideen, rather they swept into power once the Mujahideen disintegrated into infighting and warlordism. Probably one of the reasons for this disintegration was that the foreign powers supporting the anti-Soviet fighters ceased to give any fucks about Afghanistan once the Soviets were kicked out. But I dont know enough about Syria to guess what its future will look like, or if theyll be any appetite for continued fighting.

Canada is banning a bunch of firearms, and they're shipping them to Ukraine.

Defence Minister Bill Blair said some of the guns the government plans to collect will be sent to Ukraine as part of Canada's ongoing donations of military aid to that country.

"The Department of National Defence will begin working with the Canadian companies that have weapons that Ukraine needs … in order to get these weapons out of Canada and into the hands of the Ukrainians," he said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-gun-control-announcement-1.7402187

Yoon's Statment on Lifting Martial Law (CNN)

“Dear citizens, I declared martial law at 11 o’clock last night with a firm will to save the country against anti-state forces that are trying to paralyze the essential functions of the state and destroy the constitutional order of liberal democracy. However, a little while ago, the National Assembly demanded the lifting of martial law, so the troops deployed for martial law affairs were withdrawn. Martial law will be lifted immediately by accepting the National Assembly’s request through a State Council (cabinet) meeting. However, although we have immediately convened a State Council meeting, as it is still early in the morning and the quorum for resolution has not yet been met, martial law will be lifted as soon as it is reached. However, we request the National Assembly to immediately stop its reckless actions that paralyze the functions of the state through repeated impeachment, legislative manipulation, and budget manipulation.”

Namibia elects Nandi-Ndaitwah as country’s first woman president

But

Her win cements her governing South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) party’s 34-year hold on power since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 – a contested outcome.

Opposition parties have rejected the results after the election was marred by technical problems, including shortages of ballot papers and other issues, causing election officials to extend voting until Saturday. Long queues meant that some voters gave up on the first day of voting after waiting for up to 12 hours.

The opposition parties say the extension was illegal and have pledged to challenge the results in court.

The candidate for the main opposition Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), Panduleni Itula, trailed Nandi-Ndaitwah with 25.5 percent of the vote, according to the commission.

“The rule of law has been grossly violated and we cannot call these elections by any means or measure as free, fair and legitimate,” Itula said on Saturday.

While in power for decades, SWAPO has disenchanted young voters due to high youth unemployment rates and enduring inequalities.

IPC is neoliberal, look at their manifesto, this was mentioned before anything related to welfare where they posture as socdem.

In addition to reducing the number of Ministries we will merge or close some of the thirty 30, parasitic organisations living off Government funds.

Privatization

unless I'm missing something there were three casings and three live rounds recovered. so either the police are only telling us some of the words, words were repeated, or some of them had no words.

Al Rastan bridge has been hit by Russian bombs. Presumably to slow HTS advance.

Looks like they want to hold Homs to me.

I truly believe we could be witnessing the first genuine disintegration of a nation-state in the 21st century, I'm talking something we haven't seen since the Partition of Polish–Lithuania or the various African states during the 1880s, Yugoslavia and the Soviet collapse probably come closest to what's happening from our lived experience, except worse on a per capita basis

It's no different then if ISIS gained full control of Syria in 2015-2016, the inertia and assumptions of the global "anti-terror" machine built up over the last quarter-century guarantees there will be no normalization, no lifting of sanctions, no Taliban style grudging acceptance from the global community

Too many states all over the world bought into the US led war on Terror and al-Qaeda was the face of the enemy for too long and too profoundly for there to be anything other than near universal rejection to an HTS ruled Syria

This is a neocons wet dream, an oil rich advertisement for intervention and annexation by Turkey, the US and Israel

The coming "betrayal" and "scapegoatfication" by NATO will most likely drive the salafists militants into a psychotic religious mania, most likely directed at Iraq as they escape whatever aerial campaigns and Israeli incursions the US has planned

South Korea's ruling party urges President Yoon to swiftly lift martial law following parliamentary vote. - Yonhap

Yonhap: President Yoon Seok-yeol held a cabinet meeting right before declaring martial law. Martial Law Force Vehicles Withdrew from National Assembly Parking Lot.

US State Department: "Hopefully Compliance Will Be Made" With South Korea's National Assembly's Resolution Requesting the Lifting of Martial Law. White House says it is 'seriously concerned' following South Korea's Presidential declaration of martial law.

Wtf? Is Elon musk running the White House account now?

The Saudis are probably feeling real stupid about letting Syria back into the Arab League in 2023. MBS should have just held out a little longer and Syria would have indeed collapsed.

Insert here that meme with the two guys digging for diamonds.

The entire Syrian goverment just collapsed. Wtf was that? Did Assad forces just all agree to surrender to these people without a fight? Did Assad stop paying these people? Is that why he did nothing during the Israeli-Hezbollah war? Did he seriously thought the Iranians and Russians would fight for him? Was General Soleimani the only person who truly cared about the Axis of Resistance?