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Some smol news regarding the passing of His Holiness.

The newly minted president of Iceland, Halla Tómasdóttir, expressed her condolences on Facebook, as people do these days.

But instead of using the Icelandic style of his name, Frans páfi, she used his English name, Pope Francis, which made language scholars and conservationists furrow their brows and scold the president when the press asked them for their opinions.

The office of the President has declared that the president simply wished to tag His Holiness in the post but in her haste, forgot to put the @ sign. Which might work as an explanation except that His Holiness does not have an official Facebook page.

Zelensky: 'Ukraine will never recognize Russian-occupied Crimea as part of Russian territory, it is the sovereign territory of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people

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Some people expect the next pope to follow in Francis' steps since he appointed so many electors. I hope they're right, but I just read some counter-arguments in this piece which I think are worth sharing.

It is difficult to predict the outcome of the forthcoming conclave. However, there are strong reasons to believe that Francis’s successor will be a more conservative pope. First, his pontificate has been highly transformative, both institutionally and in its public messaging, making it unlikely that the cardinals will choose another candidate equally inclined toward reform. The Church tends to resist radical and sustained change.

Perhaps more importantly, although the Sistine Chapel has thick walls, the Vatican is invariably influenced by global political trends. With Trump in the White House, and with the far right on the rise worldwide, electing another pope as progressive as Francis would be swimming against the tide – and the Vatican has a long history of adapting to changing realities rather than confronting them. That is why the next fumata blanca will likely announce a more conservative figure than Jorge Bergoglio. Indeed, the mood of the moment suggests that he may well be a stark antithesis to the ‘leftist’ pope.

So the arguments are that, since Francis was a transformative pope, it's not likely that they'll elect another pope that's transformative in the same manner since that would entail too much transformation for the church too quickly.

And that, in 2013 electing a progressive pope seemed apt for the time, but in 2025 with the far-right on the rise, it would be against the current trend, so it's likely they'll ride the wave and elect a conservative or even, god help up, a far right pope.

Hope whoever wrote this is wrong, whatever one may think about the catholic church, it was politically useful for me to be able to say "well the pope agrees with me, you brain dead warmonger" whenever I argued with liberals who wanted to keep the ukraine war going.

Also something I found interesting in the piece.

As Gerard O’Connell recounts in his book on the 2013 conclave, The Election of Pope Francis, the then-Archbishop of Buenos Aires gained popularity among prelates for his strong stance on financial transparency – a sensitive issue following the Vatileaks revelations.

So the electors in 2013 warmed up to Frances not so much because of his leftish credentials but moreso for his anti-corruption stance. This checks with the idea I've heard that since he only had 1 lung, they probably didn't expect him to live that long and to change anything.

Justkilled Dapope Vance

Yesterday was Carnation Day in Portugal. I'm gonna pull a mainstream media and instead of talking about the thousands of people who marched down Liberty Avenue to celebrate, I'm going to focus only on a far-right protest that happened the same day and got pretty dramatic.

So a bunch of far-right groupings, including a small but old far-right party called "Ergue-te" (which means "Rise up") scheduled a protest that would happen at the Martim Moniz plaza where they would march there and roast a pig, literally. Now, a lot of immigrants hang out and live there including from muslim countries so obviously this is supposed to be a provocation but, just to explain how dumb this is, if someone here is ever in Lisbon check out the plaza, it's pretty much just a tourist spot, mostly because it's outside a metro station and there are a lot foreign food restaurants around it, but aside from some subcontinent dudes hanging out in the garden just chilling, it's really not that different from most of Lisbon and honestly it's a place I always recommend to people who visit. So the whole thing is the far-right playing up xenophobic sentiments around people specifically from that region of the world, a lot of which do immigrate to Portugal for seasonal and other low-wage work.

So, because they asked for permission to protest the police had to evaluate whether they could do so safely so that the mayor's office could approve it. At first, the police gave the ok, then when obviously they realized there would be a bunch of counter protests they backed out and gave the "Not ok", so the Mayor unauthorized the protest. Now if this had been the far-right Chega party organizing this protest, that would be the end of it, they'd stick to yelling about how the government doesn't even let you publicly roast a pig, they're pretty politically astute unfortunately.

But these guys are extra crazy so they decided to hold the protest anyway, and in a rare sight, after pretty clearly provoking both the counter-protestors AND the police who were there to keep the counter-protestors from caving their heads in, well...

(CW: Police violence) Some got smacked, some got detained and some got arrested.

(CW: Hog violence) To show how blatant this thing was, here's a clip of one of these guys caught on camera, pretty clearly infiltrating the counter-protest to start a fight and rile everybody up.

US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 40th night in a row. So far, airstrikes have hit the following governorates:

Sana'a (10):

• 6 on Abrash base
• 3 on Nuqum Mount
• 1 on Al-Jiraf neighborhood

Saada (9):

• 3 northern city
• 6 in Al-Salem

Hodeidah (6):

• 6 on al-Tuhayta.

Marib (2):

• 1 on Haylan Mount
• 1 in Serwah

Warning for potential graphic imagery during ongoing airstrikes:

Al Masirah TV twitter

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The Yemeni Armed Forces released a statement yesterday, about the ballistic missile launched at Israel. Video that came later showed an impact, so the missile was not intercepted, despite initial reporting. This is the first ballistic missile attack on Israel that has evaded interception, during the current phase of conflict.

If anyone wants a breakdown of the air defence systems Ansarallah have access to in Yemen, this article provides a good overall list with photos and videos, and explains why there's a big focus on electro-opticcal and infrared based systems (their sensors are passive).

Also, the laser guided AGM-114 Hellfire air to ground missiles have made an appearance on US carriers, visible on the right, AIM-9 Sidewinder air to air missiles on the left. AGM-114s only have a maximum range of 11 km, so these are being used for some close strikes. The US Navy has had plans to integrate the AGM-114 with the F-35C stealth fighter, so that could be what's happening here.

The two other votes were Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley.

Ukrainian delegation plans to ignore Trump's 'peace plan' in London talks - Axios

The New York Times also reported that Zelensky disrupted the negotiations by refusing to recognize Crimea as Russian. US Secretary of State Rubio has cancelled a trip to London, where talks on settling the Ukrainian conflict will take place, amid Zelensky's words about refusing to recognize Crimea as Russian.

US withdraws from negotiations, says Ukrainian MP Bezugla. An hour earlier, US Secretary of State Rubio cancelled a trip to London, where negotiations on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict will take place, against the backdrop of Zelensky's words about refusing to recognize Crimea as Russian.

The Iran explosion made me think of this: I’ve heard Lebanese people say the Beirut explosion is rumoured to be done by Israel, is there anything written about that possibility?

everyone doing chauvinism central government will turn a lot of stones all right

like how dense are you as cpi inside india to not know what would happen, even lone pisrael communist was more self-aware. if you for scoring points, do thoughts and prayers routine, why throw behind the government

An hour ago, Pakistan announced a live fire naval military exercise, starting in two hours time. This is likely in response to India. It's just an exercise.

It looks like first shipments of highly tariffed stuff are just arriving. The big tariff increase (10% on everything, higher on China) was on April 5th, but tariffs applied only on products that left the port of the originating country (China, EU, etc) on April 6th or later.

US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 38th day and night in a row, with between 20-25 airstrikes reported in Hodeidah Governorate during the daytime. During the night, multiple rounds of airstrikes with multiple airstrikes each were reported in the Ma'rib and Sana'a Governorates, along with Kamaran Island

Al Masirah TV twitter

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The Yemeni Armed Forces released another statement yesterday, about launching drones at Israel and targeting the two sets of US Navy warships:

The use of a Sammad-1 drone is interesting, the Yaffa drone is a variant of the Sammad-3, an upgrade to the Sammad-1 with a vastly longer range. So I don't know why they'd use a Sammad-1, which only has a 500km range and is usually used for surveillance, and not one way attack.

Two of these cruise missiles launched at US warships likely crashed within Yemen itself, one in Al Mahwit Governorate, videos and phots of the debris suggest a failed Quds series cruise missile launch. Another missile crashed in the capital city Sana'a, and media was banned from the crash site in the hours after the initial media frenzy (so no photos or videos of missile parts for identification purposes), which is why the reporting of "a US airstrike targeting a market in Sana'a yesterday" has died down on resistance channels, there's a high possibility this was an Ansarallah missile that misfired. Two potential failed cruise missile launches (with one confirmed) on one night is a bit odd.

Footage of the failed Quds missile launch/crash

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The US Navy is continuing to suppress Yemeni radars and SAM sites, along with a potential new tactic to take out Yemeni anti air loitering munitions like Missile-358 (which have likely taken out many MQ-9 Reaper drones). An EA-18G Growler launching off of the USS Harry Truman is equipped with a heavy/"beast mode" (yes, that's what the Marines and Navy actually call a fully laden aircraft) SEAD/DEAD loadout, with 4 AGM-88E anti radiation missiles (two on each wing's outboard stations, visible in the first picture), 2 AIM-120 AMRAAM air to air missiles (visible in the second picture, near the centreline of the aircraft inboard of the drop tanks), and three 1817 litre/480 gallon fuel drop tanks (one on the centreline, and one on each wing). I'm guessing that that the AIM-120s will be used to shoot directly at the airborne loitering munitions themselves from a safe distance. So the plan to counter these air to air loitering munitions like Missile-358, is just to shoot them out of the sky with radar guided air to air missiles from EA-18Gs.

BREAKING | Israeli media reports explosions in the Negev following a missile launch from Yemen. - The Cradle Telegram

Pakistan and India Exchange Fire Along the Line of Control - Telesur English

Word is that Pope Francis has ruthlessly purged reactionary cardinals, paving the way for less shitty cardinals to elect another less shitty pope. Is this liberation theologist cope or should we trust the plan?

Montana has a measles outbreak with its first cases in 35 years

Freezing the conflict along the current front line was Vladimir Putin's proposal, Western media say

According to their information, Trump expects a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia to be concluded by April 30, by which time Russia will allegedly completely expel the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the Kursk region and end military operations.

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Rally attended by over 250000 people against the Lai regime:
https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20250426003700-260407?chdtv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TopCth7qIw

The black signs they're holding are pretty cringe (It says "Oppose green (color of the DPP) communism. Fight against dictatorship"), but I skipped through the livestream and saw Han Kuo-yu made a speech about how Taiwan can't fall into the trap of becoming the next Ukraine. And this isn't the first major political rally against the Lai regime either.

Anyways, we need to keep calm and trust the plan.

https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1915866000777675043

Trump was informed of the assassination of Russian General Moskalyk: The U.S. president said he would review the information.

"No, I just heard... You're just telling me that for the first time. That's a big one. I'll look at it,"

FYRE Fest Is Bigger than One Person ...So, I'm Selling the Brand!!!

Brain Draining the Swamp: European Countries Welcome Purged American Scientists

European nations are launching initiatives to attract scientists persecuted under the American Trump regime. In response to budget cuts, ideological purges, and political interference in research across the United States, these countries are positioning themselves as sanctuaries for exiled intellectuals and displaced expertise.

Norway has announced a NOK 100 million (RMB 70 million) initiative aimed at recruiting up to 50 foreign researchers into its universities and research institutions. Although the program is nominally global, officials acknowledge it was fast-tracked due to what they describe as the "acute situation in the U.S." Mari Sundli Tveit, Director of the Norwegian Research Council, pointed to “academic freedom under pressure” and the emergence of “forbidden word lists” in U.S. grant applications—including banned terms like “climate change,” “black,” and “woman”—as signs of deeper systemic rot. “There is great concern about irreplaceable data on health and climate stored in the U.S.,” Tveit warned.

Norwegian Education Minister Sigrun Aasland underscored the country’s urgent need for top-tier scientific expertise, even as she acknowledged the complex but vital partnership with American researchers. “We have an extensive collaboration with American researchers, and we want that to continue,” she noted.

Across the Skagerrak, Danish academic institutions report an unprecedented influx of interest from U.S. scientists, many from elite institutions such as Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Princeton. “We are seeing an interest from U.S. researchers I have never experienced in my 12 years in this field,” said Nikolaj Lubanski, deputy director of Copenhagen Capacity, the agency behind Science Hub Denmark, an organisation recruiting international talent for Danish universities. This initiative, backed by major Danish research foundations, is now explicitly targeting American talent.

Lubanski describes a “special window” created by the collapse of stability in U.S. science policy. Danish universities are particularly eager to recruit experts in green technology, neuroscience, and sustainable biosolutions. A recent recruitment event by Science Hub Denmark at MIT attracted three times more applicants than it could accommodate and half of the unique visitors to the organisation's home page are Americans.

This pan-European effort also includes France’s “Safe Place for Science” program. President Emmanuel Macron proclaimed via social media: “Science is a boundless horizon. Researchers of the world, choose France, choose Europe.” Éric Berton, rector of Aix-Marseille University, framed the effort as “a form of scientific asylum” for embattled colleagues.

Though European leaders stop short of directly denouncing their imperial overlord’s crackdown on scientific inquiry, the quiet exfiltration of intellectual capital from the United States points to an unraveling of the hegemon’s soft power. As universities across Europe mobilize to absorb the human capital purged by the Trump regime, the long-term consequences for global scientific collaboration—and for American imperialism's ability to project power through research—remain to be seen.

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also apparently the pope died right after meeting jd vance. what a world.

here's a link to a source to make this an officially acceptable top comment: https://apnews.com/article/vatican-pope-francis-dead-01ca7d73c3c48d25fd1504ba076e2e2a

Huge L from Remnin University Chongyang Institute, as they did an interview with Jackson Hinkle over his glazing of the Governance of China, and poverty alleviation efforts

Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China (RDCY) was established on January 19th, 2013. It is the main funding program that Shanghai Chongyang Investment Group Co., Ltd. donated to Renmin University of China and established the education fund to operate.

Never expected to see this bozo on my WeChat homepage. Cowards also turned off comments to the short video

Thankfully the Ukrainians got in their own way before the Russians were forced to officially reject the Kellogg "peace plan"

Now it's likely Trump will blame the Ukrainians instead of the Russians for ruining his "negotiations"

US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 41st night in a row. So far, airstrikes have hit the following governorates:

Sana'a (8):

• 2 on Bani Hashish district.
• 2 on Harib Nihm district
• 4 on Al Haymah and Manakhah directorates.

Amran (2):

• 2 on Sufyan District.

Hodeidah (5):

• 1 on Al Salif district.
• 4 on Kamaran Island.

Marib (7):

• 4 on Madghal district.
• 3 on Majzer district.

Warning for potential graphic imagery during ongoing airstrikes:

Al Masirah TV twitter

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https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/24/hacked_alpine_quest_android_app/?ICID=ref_fark Booby-trapped Alpine Quest Android app geolocates Russian soldiers

Oof always thought something like that would go down often

Chief of General Staff Gerasimov through TASS has confirmed the presence of DPRK fighters in some capacity:

https://archive.ph/znkqi

Gerasimov also commended the role of North Korean fighters in the liberation of the Kursk Region.

"I want specially to note the participation of servicemen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in liberating border areas of the Kursk Region who in accordance with the Treaty on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between our countries rendered considerable assistance in crushing the Ukrainian army’s combat group that had launched an incursion," Gerasimov said.

As Russia’s military chief pointed out, "soldiers and officers of the Korean People’s Army were accomplishing combat objectives shoulder to shoulder with Russian servicemen and in the process of repelling the Ukrainian incursion showed high professionalism and displayed endurance, courage and heroism in combat."

Vijay Prashad

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) strongly condemns the barbaric killing of 28 tourists in Jammu and Kashmir by terrorists. The CPI(M) extends deepest condolences to the families of the innocent people who lost their lives in the attack. Several people have suffered serious injuries in the attack. The CPI(M) extends wishes for their speedy recovery. The perpetrators of the horrific crime must be apprehended and punished. The police and security forces are under the Central Government. The Central Government must leave no stone unturned in bringing the forces responsible for the dastardly attack to justice. The perpetrators of the crime are the enemies of the nation and more so of the people of Kashmir. It is incumbent on the Central Government to probe all angles of the attack including the lack of security in crowded tourist places. The CPI(M) stands united with the people of India in this hour of tragedy against the extremist fundamentalist forces.

Kinda weird to call the central goverment Hindutva fascism for years and then fully support them in increasing the militarization of Kashmir, also Prashad posted this 5 years ago

One year ago, Narendra Modi arrested Kashmir.

In my Opinion the CPI (M) is not looking good

at least the indian communists still have the naxalites

President Trump, after talking to Zelensky for 15 minutes at the Vatican:

'There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days! It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along. Maybe he has to be dealt with differently, through 'Banking' or 'Secondary Sanctions?'.

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