French official says Pakistan downed Rafale jet as officials examine possible further losses - CNN
A high-ranking French intelligence official told CNN today that one Rafale fighter jet operated by the Indian Air Force was downed by Pakistan, in what would mark the first time that one of the sophisticated French-made warplanes has been lost in combat.
Pakistan claimed earlier today to have shot down five Indian Air Force jets in retaliation for Indian strikes, including three Rafales. Indian officials are yet to respond to the claim.
The French official told CNN that French authorities were looking into whether more than one Rafale jets were shot down by Pakistan overnight.
Pictures taken of parts of an aircraft that crashed in Indian-administered Kashmir show the label of a French manufacturer, but experts said it was not possible to say whether the part came from a Rafale aircraft.
Dassault Aviation, the French manufacturer of the jet, has not responded to CNN’s requests for comment.
Deutsche Bank report: China eats the world
On February 5, 2025, Deutsche Bank published a research report titled "China Eats the World", drawing on the phrase by Marc Andreessen, who said in 2011, "Software is eating the world," making a prescient prediction that software would drive tremendous economic benefits. Deutsche Bank is also optimistic about China, viewing its criticized economic flaws as minor in light of its broader momentum.
In microchip news:
Intel invests US$300 million in China chip packaging and testing plant
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The US chip giant aims to expand an existing chip packaging and testing facility in China, its largest market
US semiconductor giant Intel said it would expand its chip packaging and testing base in Chengdu, in a show of commitment to the mainland market despite a recent call by a Beijing-backed cybersecurity group to review the company’s products.
In addition to enlarging packaging and testing capacity for server chips, the facility will also establish a “customer solutions centre to improve the efficiency of the local supply chain, increase support for Chinese customers and improve response time”, Intel China said on Monday on its WeChat account.
The Santa Clara, California-based company will inject US$300 million into its local entity, Intel Products (Chengdu), to support the expansion, according to a WeChat post published by the city’s Reform and Development Commission.
Launched in 2003, Intel’s Chengdu plant is responsible for the packaging and testing of more than half of the company’s laptop processors shipped worldwide. Packaging and testing is the final step in semiconductor manufacturing, ensuring the quality and reliability of a product.
The facility plays a critical role in Intel’s global supply chain, while Chengdu provides a “favourable” business environment that paves the way for the company’s “stable growth”, Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger said during a visit there last year. Chengdu is the capital of China’s southwestern Sichuan province.
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“My simple message is, ‘Let’s get it finished,’” said Gelsinger in an interview with The New York Times.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has been frustrated with the U.S. government’s slow progress in providing Intel with its promised CHIPS Act funding. The New York Times shared recent interviews with Gelsinger and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo about the CHIPS and Science Act.
The Biden-backed CHIPS Act represents $280 billion of funding for semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, giving the Commerce Dept. the ability to provide 10-figure grants and loans to companies like TSMC and Intel to supercharge a young U.S.-based chip industry. The Biden administration has promised Intel $8.5 billion in direct funding to build its new chipmaking fabs (plus $11 billion in loans and a 25% investment tax credit of up to $100 billion). Still, the company has not seen any of these funds so far.
Missing the funds is a problem for Intel, which is in turmoil due to $1.6 billion in losses in Q2 2024. Intel is cutting 15% of its workforce, representing 15,000 or more workers worldwide. Gelsinger has spent the past three months since the disastrous August earnings call restructuring his company and placating stockholders. He has become “frustrated” with the roadblocks the government has put in between Intel and its CHIPS Act funds.
“My simple message is, ‘Let’s get it finished,’” said Gelsinger in an interview. “There’s been renegotiations on both sides.” The U.S. government put some objectives between CHIPS Act recipients and their money, with milestones including completing building projects, securing customers, etc. “Obviously, with elections, you know, nigh in front of us, hey, we want this done,” said Gelsinger, with the possibility of a new presidential regime lighting a fire of urgency.
This reticence to give out CHIPS Act funding right away apparently stemmed from fears from the government that Intel specifically would not meet its promises. “[There is fear that] Intel is going to take chips money, build an empty shell of a factory and then never actually open it, because they don’t have customers,” said former Commerce Department official Caitlin Legacki.
Gelsinger’s tenure as CEO since 2021 has been marked by a desire to rebuild the company in a foundry-forward direction. One of the major forces behind lobbying for the CHIPS Act, Gelsinger also supercharged the Intel Foundry division, which, despite its extremely high costs, has been deemed crucial for Intel's long-term success. The foundry is set to be spun off into an independent subsidiary, with its overseas operations paused for the next two years while its U.S. facilities are prioritized.
According to reports from last month, Intel is set to receive its first round of CHIPS Act funds before the end of 2024. Gelsinger, as mentioned above, is anxious to receive funds before the election, and Qualcomm is reportedly waiting until the election to make a move on purchasing Intel assets.
The live streaming platform Twitch has banned users with Israeli IPs from creating new accounts, gamers are very mad.
Previously, the South Koreans did not supply anything to Ukraine
That's a lie, isn't it?
Egypt to back South Africa genocide case against Israel at world court ^[SCMP]^
From what I've heard Egypt cracked down pretty hard on the protests and I'm under the impression no one expects the government to do the right thing unprompted so this was kind of surprising.
I somehow completely missed that Ukraine is now using civilian planes to bomb Russia. You'd think the international "rules based" order people would have something against this but they predictably do not.
A Ukrainian Sport Plane Drone Just Flew 800 Miles Into Russia To Blow Up An Oil Refinery ^[forbes]^
Presumably nothing will come from this (because nothing good ever happens) but it would be great if China could start prying Europe away from the US.
Decided to check the google trends for this "overcapacity" the news has been trying to push and the region stats really reflect the target demographic.
US first quarter annualized GDP growth comes in at 1.6%, lower than the expected 2.5%. At the same time inflation rises to 3.5%.
Metabola
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Two reports released today concluding Israel is committing genocide, both by Israeli orgs. Nothing we didn't already know but useful for convincing libs.
Our Genocide (B'Tselem, 88 pages)
Conclusion
Since Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip, we have witnessed relentless human suffering and loss of life on a scale unimaginable just months prior. Entire cities bombed and razed, with scarcely a house left standing; hundreds of thousands torn from their lives, roaming dusty roads like human shadows, with what little they could take on their backs, searching for temporary shelter; adults and children jostling in endless lines for a little food, risking life and limb for the chance to feed their starving families; and above all, death looming everywhere. This is a human catastrophe being broadcast live from the inferno. Genocide goes beyond the horrific harm to its direct victims. It is an assault on humanity itself: on the fundamental belief that every life is precious, and the core principle that every human being is entitled to basic rights affording protection from arbitrary violence. History shows that attempting to eradicate a group of human beings is a crime with catastrophic consequences — a crime that every person has the duty to oppose and act to stop immediately. This is a moral, legal, and human imperative: to acknowledge the facts, call them by name, stand with the victims, and demand an end to destruction and extermination while they unfold.The review presented in this report leaves no room for doubt: since October 2023, the Israeli regime has been responsible for carrying out genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Killing tens of thousands of people; causing bodily or mental harm to hundreds of thousands more; destroying homes and civilian infrastructure on a massive scale; starvation, displacement, and denying humanitarian aid — all this is being perpetrated systematically, as part of a coordinated attack aimed at annihilating all facets of life in the Gaza Strip. Moreover, Israel's decision to continue this assault despite countless warnings and ample evidence of its deadly consequences, combined with repeated public clarifications by Israeli policymakers that the target is the entire population of Gaza, demonstrate the intent of Israel's political and military leadership to irreversibly destroy Palestinian life in the Gaza Strip.
While genocide is underway in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli regime is leading an assault on the Palestinian population in the West Bank and a policy of egregious rights violations against Palestinian citizens of Israel. The form and extent of these actions may vary across the different areas under Israel's control, but they are rooted in the same underlying logic: denial of Palestinian humanity. In a process beginning with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and expedited after the criminal Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, the lives and dignity of Palestinians have come to be regarded as disposable by most Jewish-Israelis, and violence against them normalized.
The routine killing and destruction in the Gaza Strip and the forced displacement of tens of thousands in the West Bank would not have been possible without international inaction in the face of the unfathomable scale and severity of these crimes. Most of these crimes have been extensively documented and made public throughout almost two years of war. Yet many state leaders, particularly in Europe and the United States, have not only refrained from effective action to stop the genocide but enabled it — through statements affirming Israel's "right to self-defense" or active support, including the shipment of weapons and ammunition. Even after the International Court of Justice ruled there is plausible risk that Israel's actions amount to genocidal acts, and even after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Gallant on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the international community failed to bring these actions to an immediate halt and hold those responsible to account.
The genocidal nature of Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip and the international community's failure to prevent them will not only affect Israel's future conduct toward the Palestinian people. They are also likely to reshape norms of conduct in international relations and the protection of human rights around the world. Trampling fundamental principles of international law underfoot, and blatantly disregarding the moral norms that shaped the post-WWII world order, may turn the use of indiscriminate lethal force and deliberate targeting of civilians into the starting point in the conduct of future violent conflicts. Confronting the immense destruction and moral disintegration requires not only acknowledging the crimes but also commitment to action and to accountability — both international and domestic. We acknowledge that rebuilding after such devastation will be a long and arduous task that will require a fundamental shift in the foundations of the88Conclusion Israeli regime. This change is essential also because the Israeli regime, which has stripped every moral value and obligation of meaning, is a danger to all people under its rule. Therefore, everything must be done to prevent it from claiming more victims.
In the immediate term, the recognition that the Israeli regime is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip and the deep concern that it may expand to other areas where Palestinians live under Israeli rule demand urgent and unequivocal action from both Israeli society and the international community.
This is the time to act. This is the time to save those who have not yet been lost forever, and use every means available under international law to stop Israel's genocide of the Palestinians.
Destruction of Conditions of Life: A Health Analysis of the Gaza Genocide (Physicians for Human Life Israel, 65 pages)
Summary
Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) presents this health-focused legal analysis of Israel's military campaign in Gaza since October 2023, concluding that it constitutes genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention. The evidence shows a deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza's health and life-sustaining systems - through targeted attacks on hospitals, obstruction of medical aid and evacuations, and the killing and detention of healthcare personnel.Over a 22-month period, Israel's actions have destroyed Gaza's healthcare infrastructure in a manner that is both calculated and systematic. The chronology of attacks reveals a deliberate progression: beginning with the bombing and forced evacuation of hospitals in northern Gaza, the health system's collapse extended southward as displaced populations overwhelmed remaining facilities, which were then subjected to further bombardment, siege, and resource deprivation. Gaza's health system has been systematically dismantled - its hospitals rendered non-functional, medical evacuations blocked, and essential services like trauma care, surgery, dialysis, and maternal health eliminated. The killing and detention of over 1,800 healthcare workers, including many senior specialists, has decimated Gaza's medical capacity and rendered recovery nearly impossible. Humanitarian relief has been deliberately restricted, forcing civilians to approach militarized distribution points that have often become sites of mass killings. This coordinated assault has produced a cascading failure of health and humanitarian infrastructure, compounded by policies leading to starvation, disease, and the breakdown of sanitation, housing, and education systems.
This paper also addresses evidence of mass killing and widespread harm. As of mid-2025, over 57,000 Palestinians - primarily women and children - have been confirmed killed, with estimates nearing 100,000 when indirect deaths are included. Tens of thousands have been injured, including thousands of amputees and individuals requiring long-term care that is unavailable due to the collapsed health system. Gaza residents who have been detained and held in Israeli facilities6 report systematic torture, medical neglect, and degrading treatment, contributing to both physical and psychological harm. Children face psychological trauma, while women endure sharp increases in miscarriages, preterm births, and maternal mortality amid famine and lack of reproductive healthcare services.
PHRI concludes that these acts are not incidental to war, but rather part of a deliberate policy targeting Palestinians as a group. They fulfill at least three core acts defined in Article II of the Genocide Convention: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; and (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction in whole or in part.
Despite international legal rulings, Israel has not complied with its obligations, and global enforcement remains weak. PHRI urges international bodies and states to fulfill their duty under Article I of the Genocide Convention to stop the Gaza genocide. The organization also calls on the global health and humanitarian communities to act, as the destruction of Gaza's health system is not only a legal violation but a humanitarian catastrophe demanding urgent global solidarity and response.