Bulletins and News Discussion from December 9th to December 15th, 2024 - Assad Must Go
Bulletins and News Discussion from December 9th to December 15th, 2024 - Assad Must Go
Image is of Assad and his family.
After less than two weeks of retreating with few shots fired and little resistance, the SAA has retreated into, well, a state of non-existence. This thereby ends a conflict that has been simmering for over a decade. With the end of this conflict, another begins: the carving up of what used to be Syria between Israel and Turkey, with perhaps the odd Syrian faction getting a rump state here and there. Both Israel and Turkey have begun military operations, with Israel working on expanding their territory in Syria and bombing military bases to ensure as little resistance as possible.
Israeli success in Syria is interesting to contrast against their failures in Gaza and Lebanon. A short time ago, Israel failed to make significant territorial progress in Lebanon due to Hezbollah's resistance despite the heavy hits they had recently taken, and was forced into a ceasefire with little to show for the manpower and equipment lost and the settlers displaced. The war with Lebanon was fast, but still slow enough to allow a degree of analysis and prediction. In contrast, the sheer speed of Syria's collapse has made analysis near-impossible beyond obvious statements like "this is bad" and "Assad is fucking up"; by the time a major Syrian city had fallen, you barely had time to digest the implications before the next one was under threat.
There is still too much that we don't know about the potential responses (and non-responses) of other countries in the region - Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Russia, for example. I think that this week and the next will see a lot of statements made by various parties and an elucidation of how the conflict will progress. The only thing that seems clear is that we are in the next stage of the conflict, and perhaps have been, in retrospect, since Nasrallah's assassination. This stage has been and will be far more chaotic as the damage to Israel compounds and they are willing to take greater and greater risks to stay in power. It will also involve Israel causing destruction all throughout the region, rather than mostly localizing it in Gaza and southern Lebanon. Successful gambles like with Syria may or may not outweigh the unsuccessful ones like with Lebanon. This is a similar road to the one apartheid South Africa took, but there are also too many differences to say if the destination will be the same.
What is certain is that Assad's time in power can be summarized as a failure, both to be an effective leader and to create positive economic conditions. His policies were actively harmful to internal stability for no real payoff and by the end, all goodwill had been fully depleted. By the end, the SAA did not fight back; not because of some wunderwaffen on the side of HST, but because there was nothing to fight for, and internal cohesion rapidly disintegrated.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA 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.
Btw turns out that decades and weeks Lenin quote is actually George Galloway's version of this paragraph of Lenin:
In the space of a few days we destroyed one of the oldest, most powerful, barbarous and brutal of monarchies. In the space of a few months we passed through a number of stages of collaboration with the bourgeoisie and of shaking off petty-bourgeois illusions, for which other countries have required decades.
The entire left has been quoting Galloway for years.
Interesting commentary by a Vietnamese communist:
https://xcancel.com/darrion_nguyen/status/1865962973455634668What happened in Syria vindicated Ho Chi Minh famous teaching “A nation who does not want to fight for its independence does not deserve it”. That’s why even though we got support from our allies (materials, technical), it was the Vietnamese to decide our struggle.
We got “negotiated” by big nation (incl. so called allies like the USSR / China) during Geneva and we learned our lesson. Le Duan famously said if we want unification, we must not fear the US, and also not fear the USSR and China, which means if our allies don't agree to our course of action (let’s say fully liberate the south), be prepared to get supply cut off and fought on our own term if we want unification.
Reality shows that was correct decision, culminating in Paris 1972 where we negotiate directly with the US. In the last days of south Vietnam, the West called the USSR and China to talk to Hanoi to halt our operation, but it was all in vain.
Reminds me how Iran didn't want Ansarallah to seize Sanaa, but Ansarallah did it anyways.
cuck n chad ranking: 14 years of Syrian meltdown
Note: temporary removal of the first RUS vs UKR row, this edition is fully dedicated to Syria and related conflicts
Gigachad Chad Neutral Beta (Fe)Male Virgin Cuck Abu Mohammed Al Jolani (bro started last week with a little zone in Idlib and ended this week as conqueror of Damascus) SDF (what started as a little militia to control some Kurdish neighborhoods runs more than a third of Syria today) Bashar Al Assad (the lion himself, strong independent dictator who dazzled us for years, but one day the lion couldn't do it anymore, so it was over) Iraqi Shia militia guys (spent years dying for Assad, went home to chill as the war calmed down, suddenly their life's work is gone) Syrian statue quality (Saddam's statues in Baghdad needed tanks and advanced rope to be pulled down, one guy that has gone to gym once can break a Hafez statue in two, very low quality work) Hezbollah (this collapse proved that were truly the backbone of all resistance in the region, everything is gone without them) Suheil Al Hassan (his Tiger forces leave the war as undefeated in actual combat, he deserves his gay harem) Iran and Russia (they deserve credit for somehow keeping a deeply unpopular regime alive for years, in the end they can't force the SAA to fight if they don't want to) Saudi Arabia (supported the rebels until they lost, then supported Assad until he lost, you're fucked if the Saudis are on your side) ISIS and Baghdadi (if Jolani gets gigachad for his powerful end to the race, then ISIS get virgin cuck for going on a generational run for like two years before getting destroyed) The people of Syria (endured absolute hell for years, with millions leaving and hundreds of thousands dead) Erdogan (I hate that this watermelon seller gets so many Ws in life, but I can't deny that he masterfully executed his role in this war) Iraq (suffered the worst ISIS spillover, the country almost collapsed because of it, but it came out as a mature leadership in the region) the World collectively (it never needed to be a massive war, everyone from the US to Russia to the Arab World are responsible for ruining a beautiful country) The people of Syria (14 years of pain, half of the population is gone, for what in the end, getting duped into accepting israeli control of the south and americans stealing oil in the east and jihadists in the capital) Some pretty wild footage. The prison Luigi is being held at has the inmates in uproar, and they basically do a live television interview about Luigi's prison conditions. The news anchor is able to interview inmates live because they're just shouting across the fence; lots of chants of "Free Luigi." Luigi is probably already 50% of the way there to leading a prison riot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCml-w9MQ7Y
I just can't get over the difference between "killing ceo in well executed premeditated assasination and fleeing the scene successfully" and "got caught in a mcdonalds with the gun STILL ON YOU and also with a hasily written manifesto ON HIM"
Like what? If it is the same guy, how the fuck did he pull the assassination off so effortlessly if he's this incompetent. If he's not incometent and he wanted to get caught, THIS is the way he wanted to do that? There were so many other ways!
So... wtf?! Genuinely I cannot comprehend it lmao
Israel is currently undertaking one of the largest offensive air operations in it's entire history in Syria, bombing basically any piece of SAA/ex SAA military equipment, research facilities (both civilian and military), military bases and installations, weapons caches and ammunition caches, air defence systems, tanks, fighter jets, naval assets, ports, factories, etc. All that equipment that the HTS captured from the SAA is turning to ashes at this moment, all across the country. Israel is striking as far east as Hasaka, launching over 300 airstrikes in the past few hours. 150 airstrikes were reported yesterday. The United States is, as expected, providing assistance, flying MQ-4C ISR recon drones over the coast of Syria and Lebanon. Israeli ground forces are also in the Damascus countryside and 20km/12.5mi away from Damascus city itself. It's a disastrous situation, one that's was entirely predictable should the government of Syria fall.
I made a comment a few months ago about how the SAAs air defence systems, including S-300 PMU-1's supplied by Russia, S-200s, Tor and Pantsir point air defence systems, were the only things in Syria preventing a large scale air attacks from Israel, and the skies of Syria turning into the skies of Lebanon and Gaza. Yes Israel could conduct air strikes into Syria, but those required extensive effort and planning, and were only done on a small scale, nothing like what is happening now. Some were dismissive of my comment given that Israel could conduct these limited strikes. But it unfortunately seems that I was right, now that those air defence systems no longer exist or have operators, Israel has free reign over the skies of Syria and are conducting some of the largest air operations in their history... The Syrian state infrastructure is being completely dismantled.
The amount of gloating and rebranding ISIS and Al Quedea as "rebels" from even Arab media is making me sick watching the coverage of this. Do people not understsnd who these bastard are? Have they forgotten already every single Arab country the west stuck their corrupted fingers in? What the fuck is going on?
Gotta give myself and @MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net a big pat on the back for correctly dooming from the start, we were the only megaheads that got the Afghanistan-scenario prediction correctly.
NYU has banned dozens of students and three (Jewish) professors from campus and declared them personae non grata for participating in a pro-Palestine protest. One of the professors is Rebecca Karl, author of Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World, which I think I've seen recommended on here.
I'm still in a state of shock, it feels weird that the Assads are gone when they've been such a constant in every Syrian's life for decades. I teared up today imagining that God might bless us one day with sights of Arab fighters storming Israeli prisons and freeing prisoners like we saw in Syria today.
funny how the US launched F35s against a Chinese balloon after days of non stop press about it, but the oh so mysterious drones off New Jersey are at once nothing to worry about but also ominous and spooky. they know what the fuck they are, this is the Americans we're talking about they'd shoot it just for laughs let alone perceived threat. they're absolutely American tech
With the fall of Syria, Nasrallah's assassination, and the death of Raisi, I've figured out how the Resistance media operates.
- If imperialist media is reporting something and there is no reporting on it at all by Resistance media, it is probably false.
- If imperialist media is reporting something and Resistance media is explicitly denying it, it is very possibly true.
- If imperialist media is reporting something and Resistance media is explicitly denying it and there's rumors from channels in the know that it's true, then it's almost certainly true and they are figuring out the best moment to report it.
To sum it up: If it's all clear, there's nothing to fear; if they deny, get ready to cry.
HTS fighter gives 'brotherly advice', asking me to wear headscarf - BBC
spoiler
On our way to Damascus’ main Umayyad Square, I meet Abul Hammam, a Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighter, and his cousin Mohammad.
They hug each other tightly, meeting after 15 years apart.
Abul Hammam, 30, originally from Damascus, says he was fighting in Aleppo for years at the beginning of the Syrian revolution where he joined HTS. He has been in Azerbaijan for some years.
I speak to him in Azeri a little.
"Your name is Arabic but you are not Arab. Where are you from?" he asks me.
I cautiously tell him that I am originally from Iran’s West Azerbaijan.
He smiles, saying: "Many of our ancestors are from Balkan and old Soviet Union countries near Iran. I like Iranian people but not the regime. We fought with them."
He goes on to ask me whether I am a Christian – I smile, trying to avoid talking about religion. He continues: "May I give you a brotherly nice advice? Do you have headscarf?"
I say yes I have it with me.
"I think you will be nicer if you wear it as a Muslim woman," he says.
Out of respect and for security reasons I take my headscarf and cover a part of my hair similar to how I would wear it in Iran.
"If you bring it further and cover all, it will [be] much better," Hammam adds.
Israel couldn't help it. All they had to do was play ball with a NATO backed goverment. HTS had been going out of its way to say they had no problems with Israel and were anti Hezbollah/Iran. But no, the Israelis just had to do a shameless landgrab and bomb the shit out of Syria instead.
No future government of Syria can exist without military infrastructure. And now Russia is back into play as the only actor that can make that a reality. I'm sure nobody in Washington will blame Israel for this though.
biden commuted the sentence of a judge who went to jail for getting money to give kids lengthy sentences in for-profit juvenile prisons
Some interesting tidbits from Arab social media since the fall of the Syrian state:
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The euphoria is pretty much over, the discussion is slowly shifting to "what's next?".
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Revanchism towards Shias or whatever on social media is also shifting towards a more reconciliatory tone. HTS behaving well towards the Shia shrines has been the main catalyst for that shift imo.
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Lots of criticism towards how freeing the prisoners turned into some type of social media clout treasure hunt, many felt that it was dehumanising and distasteful.
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Girls are thirsting for Jolani
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Lots of Egyptians and Bahrainis are basically saying "God I wish that was us", they're dreaming about changing their shitty regimes and opening the prisons
Lastly, I spoke with my aunt who lives in Aleppo and my cousin who has a farm outside of Damascus. They're both kinda content with the current situation. They mostly feel happy that the pressure of living under Assad is gone and that they can freely insult him now. Services and stuff like that haven't been interrupted and shops are functioning normally. Currency confusion remains mostly in Aleppo though, where people alternate between Syrian Liras, Turkish Liras and USD.
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There is something that needs to be said about Syria - what is the message being sent to the Global South?
A lot has been said and asked about why Global South countries don’t dare to stand up and reluctant to fight the creeping Western imperialism being waged against them. Well, compradors aside, for one, most governments don’t want to end up like Libya. Many governments really don’t want to have a huge target being painted on their back, so it’s better to keep your head down and pray that the imperial hegemon doesn’t take an interest in you.
If one could still argue that Libya fell because Medvedev butt headed with Putin and refused to veto the UN resolution (though it is doubtful that would have made any substantial change to the situation, there are people who believe that if Putin had been in charge in 2011, Russia could have served as a counteracting force against NATO in Libya), then Syria shattered that illusion completely by demonstrating that even Putin’s Russia will abandon you.
This does not fare well for the anti-imperialist banner that Russia and Iran (and maybe even China) are attempting to portray themselves as the spearheads of the movement. If you piss off the empire, nobody is coming to save you. You’re going to be all alone. So, it’s better to keep your heads low and learn to know your place, then maybe, just maybe, the empire will let you live for another day.
https://xcancel.com/marcus_herve/status/1867493161397830069🛑🇳🇪- Niger suspends BBC News!
Niger has suspended BBC for 3 months for falsely reporting that over 130 people died in the recent attack, a claim that they couldn’t prove. So, the State decided to suspend them.
Harden your heart, oh Putin. Increase your attacks.
it's not even a question anymore (if it ever was), this was a US/Israeli coup.
Some mintpress news.
Congress has just passed a new bill that will see the U.S. spend huge sums of money redesigning much of the public school system around the ideology of anti-communism.
What I found most absurd in the article is this new update on the famous 100 million victims of communism list:
"The principal organization promoting the 100 million figure today is the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which has shown a similar level of both anti-communist devotion and methodological rigor. The group, set up by the U.S. government in 1993, added all worldwide COVID-19 deaths to the victims of communism list, arguing that the coronavirus was a communist disease because it originated in China."
This is just so deeply unserious. I have a really hard time understanding how people fall for this so easily.
Nancy Pelosi tripped on the stairs (NYT)
Ms. Pelosi tripped going down marble stairs at the Grand Ducal Palace and took a hard fall, according to a person familiar with the incident who was not authorized to comment and spoke on condition of anonymity.
...
It was the second time this week that an octogenarian congressional leader sustained an injury while carrying out their official duties.
On Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell, 82, Republican of Kentucky, tripped and fell in the Capitol following the weekly G.O.P. luncheon, spraining his wrist and sustaining a small cut to his face.
troubling stuff from lebanon:
truly feel those shitheads will rather start shia/sunni conflict than notice entity across the border
PSA: How white people in your life react to the Daniel Penny verdict is a good barometer for how actually racist they may be but aren’t telling you.
Saying he was a hero and/or innocent almost certainly means they are way more racist than they are letting on.
This is one way in which racism works in 2024 in the US. Racist white folks will generally avoid being openly racist but will latch on to any chance they can get to flex that racism in ways that superficially are socially acceptable.
Daniel Penny murdered a black man who wasn’t harming anyone. The fact that he was acquitted is ridiculous but sadly predictable, as is the reaction from many white people. In a way I can’t describe, the support Penny is getting feels more overtly racist than Rittenhouse.
Unidentified Iranian drones, reportedly the size of small cars, have been flying over American airspace to monitor U.S. military installations and critical infrastructure, including 'Picatinny Arsenal', an army base which houses the Headquarters of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center (CCDCAC) – the drones are said to be 'technology that the U.S. does not possess' – Newsweek
'The drones are not Iranian, but they are also not part of the U.S. military or any foreign government'
'The drones seem to have some sort of advanced stealth capability' – Congressman Van Drew (R-NJ2)
'One month ago, Iran launched a mothership near the U.S. East Coast, from where Iranian military drones have been entering U.S. airspace, including New Jersey, to monitor residences of the President & American military movements. These drones should be SHOT DOWN. The U.S. military is on full alert regarding this.' – Congressman Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ-2), citing high-ranking intelligence sources
The Pentagon has denied that Iranian drones are operating in U.S. airspace, and states there is 'no official explanation' for the unidentified drones. However, Congressman Van Drew & other high-ranking government officials within the sub-commitee of Aviation of the U.S. House of Representatives insist that their information is truthful.
They say the Pentagon is denying the news in order to prevent mass panic among the U.S. population. 'These are not American drones, we don't even have anything like this. I have it from extremely reliable sources that these are Iranian drones, launched from a mothership near the East Coast', Van Drew said.
China’s ‘explosive’ ironmaking breakthrough achieves 3,600-fold productivity boost
Known as flash ironmaking, the method “can complete the ironmaking process in just three to six seconds, compared to the five to six hours required by traditional blast furnaces.”
According to calculations by Zhang and his colleagues, the new technology could improve the energy use efficiency of China’s steel industry by more than one-third. As it eliminates the need for coal entirely, it would also enable the steel industry to achieve the coveted goal of “near-zero carbon dioxide emissions”, Zhang’s team added.They're already done pilot testing and are rolling out commercial versions of the required machinery. Could be huge for countries with large reserves of low and medium quality steel.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi held a meeting with IDF Chief-of-Staff Herzi Halevi in Cairo. In the meeting, Israel reportedly guaranteed to offer assistance and protection to the Sisi regime in the event of an uprising in Egypt. Israel sees Egypt's current government as a 'friendly and stable' regime that poses no direct threat to Israel, according to officials. – Maariv
What Israel means, is that if Sisi falls, they will bomb Cairo and the Sinai killing both revolutionaries and pro-goverment people.
My heart still breaks into a million pieces whenever I see a clip of Nasrallah on twitter or anywhere else. I can't believe he's really gone, I still can't fully accept it. I kept watching a beautiful clip of a Lebanese man in Iraq reading a little poem to mourn him on repeat today. The lyrics were this:
أين نصرالله أين - Where is Nasrallah, where
ليته في الحاضرين - I wish he was present
نحن اقسمنا يمينا - We took an oath
للشهادة سائرين - Towards martyrdom we march
It sounds better in Arabic I promise
Exclusive: Syria's new rulers back shift to free-market economy, business leader says - Reuters, 10 December 2024
Syria's new government has told business leaders it will adopt a free-market model and integrate the country into the global economy in a major shift from decades of corrupt state control, the head of the biggest Syrian business lobby said on Tuesday.
"It will be a free-market system based on competition," Bassel Hamwi, head of the Damascus Chambers of Commerce, told Reuters in an interview...
Yes, it's real, we're getting neoliberal free market jihadists now, 2024 just keeps on giving...
"People are still waiting to see if it will be an open society or an Islamic state," a Beirut-based Syrian businessman said, who asked not to be named to talk freely.
Why not both, an open market and Islamic state?
Hamwi said he had been informed by Adelaziz that the stifling customs system would be done away with, fulfilling a major demand of traders and industrialists.
"Everyone who registers at the chambers will be able to import the goods they want into the market, within a specific system," he said.
Reuters spoke to four prominent Syrian businessmen who said the message from the new authorities appeared encouraging and a far cry from a system that had been heavily controlled by a small cohort of loyalist businessmen close to the Assads.
related meme, because if you don't laugh, you'll cry.
I always know we got a new cuck n chad ranking because my thread on mobile is fucked lmao
There was a massacre in Islamabad by the US backed military forces against peacful PTI protestors and hundreds have potentially died with thousands being arrested. There is nearly complete silence about this in western media who're currently busy glazing the dead CEO.
This dude almost gave himself the wedgies to end all wedgies (CW: suicide):
https://xcancel.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1866699959187157170South Korea's former defense minister attempted suicide, trying to hang himself with his underwear.
Trump invites China's Xi Jinping to inauguration
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-invites-china-xi-jinping-inauguration/
cursed lathe
Xi attends. The MAGA communism shit head gets invited and has a meeting with the two.
Pinned comment with info TBD describing what the news mega is to new folks
General overview: The News mega is a place where people talk about news from around the world.
Anyone can jump in and write something up. The really good stuff will get yoinked by me and edited into this pinned comment (with credit).
As a general notice to old heads, the newer crowd - as far as I've seen from applications - tend to lean a mix of apolitical progressive to some flavor of anarchism. So play nice if any of them accidentally wander in, especially those of you who love to engage in posting blood sports and call shitlibs compradors. (You know who you are. Kiddie gloves or just don't engage)
refer to this comment from combate doomerismo
Alright so recently milei announced that he wishes to carry out a "Nuclear Plan" for 2025. No, milei has not gone mad and decided to develop a nuke to throw it on Gaza (he's a massive piece of shit zionist, remember), he wants to build small reactors around the country. Seems good right? Expanding Argentina's nuclear capacity is not a bad thing. Currently Argentina operates three nuclear power plants, Atucha I, Atucha II and Embalse, the three combined produce around 7% of Argentina's electricity.
On the other hand, Argentina has very good nuclear research facilities and professionals. There's a locally-produced small capacity nuclear reactor called CAREM which, if financed properly, could become a massive worldwide hit. You could also build a bunch of those reactors for each province and cities and achieve autonomous energy production in them, you know, in a true Federal way as it's supposed to be.
Yeah well, hold it right there because milei has cut financing for this project, all research and construction is halted and personnel have been fired, with many seeking work abroad. CAREM also competes with US-based nuclear firms and curiously enough, CAREM's installations and archives suffered a "major cyberattack" last month, probably industrial espionage. CAREM's reactor is praised for it's efficiency and safety.
So, why does he insists on revitalizing Argentina's nuclear capacity while cutting funds for Argentina's best nuclear reactor? Because he has no interest in developing nuclear reactors for civilian use. Of course he doesn't. He spoke with Zuckerberg a few months ago and he shared his idea of building small nuclear reactors to fully keep up with AI energy demands. Our stupid ass president is of course completely on board with this idea, so his shitty reactors (which he will buy from abroad OF COURSE) will be used for the purpose of AI generated images and shit, the ones he uses for political propaganda btw.
We are so fucking cooked.
Death to "israel" btw
Luigi was a patsy, clearly hes just a distraction to protect the real shooter, Mario
So now that the Assad government is gone do we all become Rojava guys? Is it time to send anarkiddies some flowers to let the tankies into the Abdullah Ocalan stan community?
On a serious note I've been peering though some portuguese language Rojava twitter accounts and they seem very scared of HTS, they're not buying into the reformed jihadist idea at all and seem to be expecting the rebel government to strike the kurds at the behest of turkey, also they've been reporting abuses of minorities in rebel territory.
For the last few years, the GOP has coalesced around an idea that would short-circuit essentially all trans health care in America: banning federal funds from going to businesses that provide health care specific to changing one’s sex or gender identity, including hormones and surgeries. It would essentially signal to the private sector that if it wants federal dollars, it needs to stay away from sex- or gender-affirming care, and bow down to right-wing pundits who aim to, in their own words, “eradicate” and “erase” this form of health care.
Language in House Republicans’ most recent funding bill for the Health and Human Services Department would do just that — ban money from any federal program to entities that do “social transitioning” or drugs and surgery for “gender dysphoria.” Gender dysphoria is the specific diagnosis doctors use to justify those medical interventions. This legislation has not gotten a vote yet and would need to be reintroduced next Congress to be considered. But it has been a top priority for Republican lawmakers in the House, and Trump himself has promised he’d ask Congress “to permanently stop federal taxpayer dollars from being used to promote or pay for these [trans] procedures.” (You can hear all his promises on trans health care in this short campaign video.)
Bans like these can lead to the private sector discontinuing behaviors altogether — and once they are in place, they are hard to get rid of: The Hyde Amendment, enacted in the 1970s, led to most abortions no longer being performed in hospitals, and is continually renewed each year.
Medical groups and civil rights advocates in D.C. tell Rolling Stone they believe that if a Hyde-level ban on federal funding were enacted, many hospitals will simply prioritize federal dollars over continuing this highly specialized form of medical care. So much medicine is performed through hospital systems and universities that this could mean ending access for many.
Given the Democratic Party leapt at the chance to scapegoat transgender people for all their own failures in the election, I think it would take a miracle to prevent this from going into law. It will immediately put large health institutions in certain states between a rock and hard place, as local legislation requires them to offer these services, which will likely lead to appeals, but as it stands I doubt they will make even a token effort to get this language out of the bill, and it will make HRT completely legally inaccessible for anyone who can't afford private practice virtually overnight. This article's author, Jael Holzman, is the guest on this week's Chapo, you can hear the story in her own words there.
All the predictable news coverage of Assad coming out now. USA libs and cons going for a victory lap. They're even going after Assad's kids like they did for Saddam Hussein's and Gaddafi's kids. Oh my fckn god look at the mansion they lived in!!! (tiny compared to Mitch McConnell's and Nancy Pelosi's house). They had prisons!! People were held in prisons!!!!
Can't wait till the USA is liberated. They gonna find lots of unmarked graves on prison grounds. Prisoners with burnt legs and arms. Marks from torture and solitary confinement. Rat poop and bugs in the food. No heat in the winter.
Man this is not good. Assad sucks bad but he really did seem to me the least terrible option. Now any pretense of secularism is gone, openly Islamic fundamentalist groups are taking power; any facade of rights for women, religious minorities, other oppressed groups will fade into the background. I don't see HTS being anything of a bulwark to US or Israeli interests like Assad had been. Despite his lukewarm response to these things it seemed he at least was stopping Syria from becoming a base for that shit. Maybe I'm just stressed about nothing but it feels to me that an anti imperialist player has crumbled in this key region and I just can't imagine how this could be a positive development
Can they go back to blaming aliens, cause this is beyond nonsense, beyond desperate
Long standing ovation and cheer for "Palestine will win!" at the congress of the portuguese communist party this week
Elizabeth Warren introduces Senate bill to hold capitalism ‘accountable’
FINALLY! Why don’t someone do this before?!
Anti-
SovietAssad warrior puts his army on the road to peace:
https://xcancel.com/USEmbassySyria/status/864144602584035328We remain committed to bringing leading AQS figures in HTS to justice. #Syria
As some people are looking for a bigger picture I want to once again bring the real left wing struggle in Brazil right now. In general I suggest only mild/low expectations for BRICS in SA.
1- First as a reminder the analysis that Trump's election is a serious bad result for South America/Brazil still holds. Not only the USDBRL reached historic high $6,00 mark as a result of Haddad's plan. The market as expected wanted more and did not enjoy the smoke screen.
Yet on rather on another historical front the Mercosur-EU trade deal finaly happened after 25 years of negotiations. Yes almost before og BRICS was even a thing! Hilarious irony. Brazil seems to be hedging its bets, or at least accepting this geopolitical play from the EU side, I'd argue the BRICS Venezuela issue was the first sign of this hedge.
As Nakedcapitalism recently put it EU Nears Finish Line on Trade Deal With South American Bloc in an Effort to Deal Blow to China
On the South American side, there are strong reasons to believe that the deal will lead to the following:
More fires and deforestation in the Amazon. Escalation of invasion of indigenous territories, land-grabbing and violent attacks. A disruption of local food production. Increased use of dangerous pesticides.
Why Does the EU Ruling Class Want the Deal?
While agriculture products are the largest slice of the Mercosur exports to the EU (32.4 percent), mineral products are second at 29.6 percent. The South American countries have plenty of what the EU is looking for, including lithium, graphite, nickel, manganese, and rare earth elements. The EU is currently almost completely reliant on China for minerals needed for EV batteries, solar panels, wind energy, and green hydrogen — all part of the bloc’s flailing green transition.
Even if the EU is able to secure more critical minerals from Mercosur with this trade deal, who will do the processing? There’s still no clear answer. Von der Leyen likes to tout her tools like the bloc’s Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which aims for the EU to process 40 percent of the strategic raw materials it uses by 2030. The NZIA allows projects to bypass many environmental and social impact reviews, but there’s no budget, and the policies do nothing to change Europe’s disadvantages, which include a lack of subsidies compared to the US and China and much higher energy costs thanks to their “de-risking” away from Russian energy.
Yet the “de-risking” — code for the EU’s eager role as a US proxy in the fight against Russia and China — continues.
Thus far, it’s mostly been a disaster on every level — strategically, economically, and environmentally.
My wholesome BRICS leader can't possibly be signing a relic of the 2000's Free Trade Agreement that only causes environmental damage and favors the landowner class that violently opposes him and the left no way!
Though the other BRICS leader can just happily smile away as these dangerous initiatives fail anyway. Is this what a win-win/mutually beneficial deal looks like?
2- I need to remind people Lula's government went from a mostly mixed to good first half to a terrible neoliberal boot on the working class second half.
The Maduro spout was not a coincidence. Lula wants to pander to many sectors including the religious fundamentalist evengelicals that demonize the Cuban/Venezuelan revolutions.
The current Haddad(Finance Minister) despite the smoke screen(some tax exemption for poor) the focus remains, cut one of the biggest Brazilian welfare programs the BPC i.e retirement and social welfare money for people who can't retire due to illness etc.
Right now we have Federal Council of Social Services (CFESS)(1) making a public announcement against it I quote below.
Among the main points, the PL imposes technological barriers to access and permanence of the benefit - such as biometric registration and registration updating, without investment to make it viable. Furthermore, it limits the real increase in the minimum wage and, consequently, the value of the BPC, putting at risk the income of the beneficiary to meet their basic needs. Another point of setback is the reduction of elderly people and people with disabilities to the category of “infra-citizens”, by changing the concept of “family” without legal, social and scientific support.
The bill also backslides in the defense of human rights and reveals its ableist nature by resuming the concept of “person with disabilities” as someone who is “incapable of independent living and working,” violating international treaties and disregarding the Brazilian Inclusion Law (LBI) itself.
The bill also jeopardizes the survival chances of families with multiple members living in poverty, as it revokes the rule that income from a BPC already granted and other social security benefits is not taken into account for the eligibility of another member for the BPC. The bill is racist, ableist, misogynistic, patriarchal, and ageist, and it undermines the Brazilian welfare state and could lead to hunger, putting the lives of the population at risk.
Therefore, we demand the withdrawal of Bill 4614/2024 from the Chamber of Deputies, we say no to fiscal adjustment, and we invite social workers to send emails and messages on the social networks of the deputies, showing that the Social Service repudiates this bill!
Among the left political opposition only mainly PSOL have managed to oppose this monstrous neoliberal attack. In his vote he says
Congressman Chico Alencar (PSOL-RJ) told Brasil de Fato that the PSOL bench will analyze the proposals sent by the government, but added that the party's parliamentarians will reject any type of favoritism towards the financial market, while workers foot the bill.
“Our overall position is against this package. We are not interested in calming the market; what we are interested in is starting to reduce social inequalities in Brazil and calming the tensions arising from these contradictions in society,” he said.Yet this whole initiative has been the Lula's government own decision, the bill came from the government and not the opposition!
*Earlier this year Brazil already made a historical decision to increase tax on cheap(<USD$50) foreign imports, almost entirely from China e.g clothing, phone casings, every sort of cheap electronic etc. Basically Brazilians buy a lot of much cheaper clothing and stuff from China. Global south deindustrialization goes brrrrr!!!!
The local retail chain capitalists don't like this as they also only import from China and sell for a profit while Brazilians could just buy from Aliexpress for far cheaper. Yes another instance of inter-BRICS fighting where imperialist capitalists won.
3- The best for last, as a final warning don't listen to just Worker Party/PT Lula fans online.
Jones Manoel's Video because fuck twitter Here is Andre Esteves, Chairman of BTG Pactual, the biggest investment bank in Latin America, bragging about how the market managed to privatize several Brazilian utility companies and the left didn't do anything.
In the last three years, we privatized three of the six largest companies under state control. This year, Sabesp is the largest sanitation company in Brazil. Last year, Copel, which is the largest company, was the largest state-controlled energy company. The year before, it was privatized.
Privatizing Eletrobras, something that 10 years ago most of us here would have thought impossible to happen.* And to remember, Eletrobras was privatized 3 months before the election. We had the privilege of coordinating the three privatizations of Copel and Eletrobras. Because it is a huge privilege and a huge responsibility. For us at BTG, now three months before the election, we are privatizing the third largest state-owned company in Brazil.
And there was no text. No one showed up at the BTG headquarters with a cardboard sign saying I am against, right? Most of us here are from a generation that saw the privatizations there in the late 90s, right? That happened in Rio de Janeiro in Praça 15, which turned into a war zone, tear gas, investors, raising of blows, union confusion, you didn't know why it was happening, right? This time we privatized Eletrobras three months before the election and no one showed up with a cardboard sign to say I'm against it, so Brazilian society has changed.
Imagine having a banker tell it to you with a straight face lol.
I said before and I maintain the warning: Lula will not be re-elected unless there is a massive course correction. Be extremely careful with thinking state level business deals between countries, which IMO is realy the maximum extent of Chinese/dengist anti-imperialism so far, actualy reflects in our day to day struggles and the political situation at the ground level.
1:
What is CFESS?
The Federal Council of Social Services (CFESS) is a federal public agency that is responsible for guiding, disciplining, standardizing, monitoring and defending the professional practice of social workers in Brazil, together with the Regional Councils of Social Services (CRESS). In addition to its attributions, contained in Law 8.662/1993, the entity has been promoting, over the last 30 years, actions and policies for the construction of a radically democratic, anti-capitalist society project that defends the interests of the working class.
Me generally
Is it fair to say that, if Luigi truly is the guy, and he truly is still a libertarian weirdo (and didn't change his mind in the two years since he stopped tweeting), that the future of organizing in the United States should be based on the health insurance industry, since that is THE great unifier of the American people, it seems?
Uyghur's in Syria found missiles and warn china that they're coming for them.
The sooner we find out what the new regime intends to with these guys the better, they gotta be crazy to let syria be a launching pad for terrorism into china. I don't even know if china would invade to stop it, this whole syria thing has probably further convinced china that foreign intervention is a grift. Probably would just try to get some UN resolutions passed to resolve the issue, it'd be interesting to see if the US would veto it.
Obviously these fellas can't launch these at china from syria but they could smuggle them out.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/11/us/unitedhealthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-shooter-wednesday/index.html
Mangione knew UnitedHealthcare was holding an investors’ conference around the time Thompson was shot and killed — and the suspect mentioned in writings he would be going to the conference site, the NYPD’s Kenny told Fox News on Tuesday.
In the notebook passage, Mangione concludes using a bomb against his intended victim “could kill innocents” and shooting would be more targeted, musing what could be better than “to kill the CEO at his own bean counting conference,” a law enforcement official briefed on the matter told CNN.
really feeling the vibe of this 72t post recently https://hexbear.net/comment/5044804
whenever I get a bit too anxious about ongoing events, I like to imagine a hypothetical person during, say, the Mongol conquests. in the middle of massive battles that shaped civilizations, but just trying to get by on the day-to-day, trying not to get murdered, harvesting grain or weaving or something, and totally forgotten by history. did they ever think that centuries on, people would still be talking about and analyzing events back in their time? did they hope that we'd have overcome war by that distant decade? I sure hope that the people of the 2100s and 2200s are living in lovely communist cities and free from many of our blights.
Ali Larijani reportedly offered him pre-set conditions 2 weeks ago in Damascus. Bashar didn’t agree with them and even refused to meet with Larijani—Iran’s special envoy—when he returned to Damascus Friday Dec 6. Bashar Assad refused to open the Golan front, despite being asked to by the resistance groups. The Assad government, after becoming too close with the Gulf Arabs, had put a lot of restrictions on IRGCQF, this sparkled dissatisfaction.
Ex-IRGCQF officer claimed Iran intel knew since 2 months ago that rebel groups in Idlib were up to something. He claims Iranians shared their worries with Turkey, but “Turks deceived them and assured Iranians there’s nothing to be afraid of—Should not have trusted the Turks. The situation in Syria has not ended and it’s going spark unrest. Especially between Kurdish SDF vs Turkish-backed rebel groups (e.g. HTS) AND inner fights among rebel groups.
It's now widely known that Iran, Hezbollah and other Shia factions asked Assad for permission to open a front in the Golan Heights after October 7th to support the resistance in Gaza & Lebanon. However, Assad refused, reportedly saying he did not want to drag Syria into a possible open confrontation with Israel & he did not want to risk jeopardizing his normalization progress with the Gulf States. Yemen's Ansarullah reveals more about Assad: 'He closed our embassy in Damascus, in exchange for Saudi Arabia letting him open a Saudi embassy there'
From Telegram
Saw this on twitter and I think it's an interesting point: "Arab states should carefully consider that the area is now defined by three main power brokers: Israel, Turkey, and what remains of the Iranian power, and none of them are Arab.
Feels like "the arab world" has been mostly successfully israelized, Egypt is totally dormant due to state repression and the most the saudi's have done to assert themselves was normalizing with Iran through China.
Also, good short article on NLR about Syria
Some pretty credible reports in Iraqi media about Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Al Sistani's health rapidly deteriorating. He's considered the Grand Marja of the Shia Muslim faith, which makes him pretty much the Shia Pope. Shia Marja politics are incredibly interesting, and his death might actually trigger a pretty massive upheaval in the upper echelons of the political side of Shia Islam. This might be the topic of my next effortpost, something about the evolution of the Shia Marja since colonialism and then Sistani's interpretation of the role which made him the modern Marja (but actually not, more on that later). The fight about succession will be interesting with many clashing dynamics (Persian vs Arab, Qom vs Najaf, Sistani family vs Islamic Republic of Iran, Political vs Apolitical, Old vs Young), and the looming Sadrist cult threat is even more interesting.
Did anyone here invest in turkish cement and get the bag? Really we should've seen this coming.
One aspect of the Israeli invasion thats under estimated is the geography
Unlike with Hamas or Hezbollah there are no massive underground tunnel system in southern Syria, it's flat volcanic plains peppered with small to medium sized towns, no mountains, no built up urban sprawl from which to launch ambushes
It's a location where the US and Israeli air forces can leverage their full capability, the second a jihadist convoy or captured SAA tank gets within a 100km of an Israeli tank is the second an American bunker buster is dropped on top of them
Photos of thousands of Syrian refugees returning from Turkey.
The guy on the latest radio war nerd said that in Turkey, much like everywhere else these days, there's been a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which syrians have been a primary victim of and having them return on their own without even having to deport them is a huge politican win for erdogan (though elections aren't until 2028 so I don't know if he'll remain popular by then)
Former officers and soldiers of the SAA 25th Special Mission Forces Division (Tiger Forces) have gathered themselves in mountainous areas near the Lebanese border, vowing to keep fighting
They say they have fought against terrorists for years, and will continue to do so, despite the 'betrayal' of the SAA high command. They will start fighting as resistance groups to the incoming HTS / SNA government.
The commander in the video says they are ready to sacrifice themselves, he even says they have suicide bombers among them and that his pistol's last bullet will be for his head (he won't let himself be captured).
They have also replaced their chant. Instead of saying: 'Our souls, our blood, we sacrifice for Bashar', they now say 'our souls, our blood, we sacrifice for Syria'.
I guess if the new goverment becomes hostile to Iran and Russia, these guys will become the rebels that Russia and Iran will suport?
This morning, the Israeli army reached Qatana, about 20 kilometers from Damascus. Israel is advancing into Syrian territory to fulfill Netanyahu's vision of a “Greater Israel.” Last night, Israel claimed to have conducted its biggest air operation in history against Syria.
Brief summary of today's Syria news.
Turkish-backed “SNA” fighters captured the northern city of Manbij and the surrounding countryside from Washington’s Kurdish-dominated “SDF” proxies.
The fascist Tel Aviv regime continues attacking Syria all over the country (even brazenly striking army bases in and near Latakia, an arms depot near Izra (in Daraa province), Damascus’ Barza neighborhood, Homs, an airbase in Qamishli, and many other locations). The Zionist invaders now illegally occupy the southern Syrian settlements of Quneitra, Madinat al-Baath, and Hader; and an army base on Mount Hermon. So far, the Salafist armed groups have not offered any serious resistance to the Zionist invasion. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, and Iran condemned the invasion.
Big article on updates to the Colorado River water rights negotiation. Written strangely from a pro-Californian perspective, because there's no mention of how much water Californian farming corporations waste.
TLDR: Big rift between the lower and upper states on who should cut. No progress, and the negotiators are having petty fights blaming each other for the lack of progress. Trump will be taking over the negotiations. Realistically he won't have a proposal all states are okay with, so it'll become a legal battle at the end of 2026, probably going to the Supreme Court.
This is important because the Colorado River supports 40 million people, an enormous amount of hydroelectricity including the Hoover Dam, 15% of US agriculture, and 90% of winter vegetables. Asking states to cut water usage will force farmers to change crops, or go out of business. But allowing the reservoirs to dry would make a bunch of states and tribal lands uninhabitable, create enormous electricity shortages, and destroy a bunch of ecosystems
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-12-10/colorado-river-divisions
‘Zero progress’: Western states at impasse in talks on Colorado River water shortages
spoiler
Seven Western states that depend on the Colorado River are ending the year at an impasse in negotiations over the writing of new rules for dealing with chronic water shortages.
Representatives of California and other states who attended an annual Colorado River conference in Las Vegas last week said they remain deadlocked in their talks on long-term plans for reducing water use to prevent the river’s reservoirs from reaching critically low levels.
Disagreements over competing proposals have created a deep rift between two camps: the three states in the river’s lower basin — California, Arizona and Nevada — and the four states in the river’s upper basin — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico.
Those on both sides say they are willing to continue trying to reach a deal on how to apportion cutbacks in water use after 2026, when the current rules expire. But they also say easing the stalemate will be difficult.
Negotiations over the last year have brought “zero progress,” said JB Hamby, California’s Colorado River commissioner. He blamed the upper basin states for an entrenched position resisting participation in the cutbacks, which he said is untenable.
It’s worrying that there is a “widening chasm” between the sides, Hamby said. “We are running out of time, and we’re no closer to much of anything at this point than at the beginning.”
The Biden administration last month outlined a range of alternatives for the new guidelines, which will replace interim rules that were adopted in 2007. Along with that ongoing federal review process, President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is set to inherit a role in searching for a plan that all seven states can accept.
lmao trump is going to try and kill californian farming corporations
The impasse has raised the possibility that if disagreements aren’t resolved, the states could enter a legal battle, a path riddled with uncertainty that water managers in both camps have said they hope to avoid.
The tensions were apparent during last week’s Colorado River Water Users Assn. conference in Las Vegas, an event that often features negotiating sessions in addition to speeches outlining proposals for reducing demands on the river.
One public disagreement emerged over the lack of a meeting of the seven states’ representatives at the conference, a closed-door discussion that was usually scheduled in previous years.
Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top negotiator, said during one public session that she had expected representatives of all seven states to meet before the gathering started, but “that did not occur.”
Hamby took issue with her comment in an interview after the conference, saying it was untrue to suggest the lower basin states had denied a request to meet. Hamby said Mitchell had emailed him and others Dec. 2 to ask if they would have time to meet on Dec. 3 before the start of the conference, but he told her that wouldn’t work because his flight was scheduled to arrive later.
Hamby accused Mitchell of trying to portray representatives of California, Arizona and Nevada as being unwilling to talk.
“It was a last-minute pointed request meant to not generate a meeting, and then use it as a media sound bite,” Hamby said. “It begs the question, why would we want to talk to them when this is the sort of childish antics that seem to be increasingly dominating the upper basin’s manner of behavior? Not focused on actual issues, but how do we play gotcha games in the media that misrepresent each other.”
Mitchell denied that, saying she emailed hoping all the states’ representatives would meet during the week, but that didn’t happen.
“My intention is to find a way to move forward,” she said. “And so I’d be willing to meet any time — Zoom, phone, in person, anywhere.”
The Colorado River provides water for cities from Denver to Los Angeles, 30 Native tribes and farmlands from the Rocky Mountains to northern Mexico.
The river has long been over-allocated, and its reservoirs have declined dramatically since 2000. The average flow of the river has shrunk about 20% since 2000, and scientists have estimated that roughly half that decline has been caused by global warming driven by the burning of fossil fuels and rising levels of greenhouse gases.
The decline in flow is projected to worsen as temperatures rise.
In recent years, the states have adopted a series of incremental water-saving plans to try to prevent reservoirs from reaching perilously low levels.
California water agencies say they have reduced water use by more than 1.2 million acre-feet over the last two years, decreasing the state’s usage of Colorado River supplies to the lowest levels since the 1940s. Some of those water savings have come through the Biden administration’s funding of programs that pay farmers to temporarily leave fields dry to reduce water use.
Those efforts have helped conserve water in Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir. As of this week, the reservoir near Las Vegas is 33% full.
Upstream on the Utah-Arizona border, the water level of Lake Powell, the nation’s second-largest reservoir, stands at 38% of capacity.
With the negotiations on future water reductions at an impasse, some experts at the conference discussed the possibility of a legal fight being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Summarizing the mood at the meeting in an article for the news site Aspen Journalism, reporter Heather Sackett wrote that “speakers invoked Dr. Strangelove, the Hunger Games and Alice in Wonderland to convey the dire, darkly dystopian and illusory state of the negotiations.”
Mitchell told The Times in an interview that the hard discussions reflect the difficulty of making substantial changes to adapt when the reservoirs are at low levels.
“When you’re negotiating at or near crisis points within these reservoirs, it becomes more and more difficult,” Mitchell said.
Still, Mitchell said she is hopeful the negotiators will be able to progress in the talks.
“I really feel like we might want to spend some time looking at where we have some common ground, and see what we can build on from there,” Mitchell said. “We have to look at what the supply is and share that.”
The two groups of states have presented starkly different proposals, disagreeing on how triggers for mandatory cutbacks should be determined, and how the reductions should be apportioned.
Representatives of California, Arizona and Nevada say the upper states’ proposal is unworkable because it would require the lower states to shoulder the burden of the cuts, while the lower basin’s proposal would spread the cuts throughout the region when reservoirs reach low levels.
Representatives of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico say they are seeking proportionate reductions. Officials from those states have said because water users in their region largely depend on snowmelt rather than water releases from reservoirs, they already regularly face serious shortages.
Water managers in the upper basin states have come under criticism recently from environmentalists and officials in other states for moving ahead with plans for new dams and diversions that would take more water from the river.
Hamby said those plans are a source of concern.
“This is not the time for putting a further strain on an already stressed river that’s only going to be getting smaller in the future,” Hamby said.
Mitchell said agencies in Colorado are developing such projects with the understanding that their water rights will likely be curtailed in many years because of limited supplies.
“In many cases, new storage projects will essentially simply help folks store water in wet years so they can survive in the dry years,” she said. “We need to take advantage of those.”
Early next year, Entsminger said, “the states need to get back to work and start forging a solution.”
Israeli bombings are still ongoing in Syria. They're apparently targeting the facilities of what were radar battalions in Damascus, scientific research facilities in Hama, and missile bases built into the Qalamoun mountain range. Remember that video taken by rebels a few days moaning about how Assad and Hezbollah built those underground missile bases into the mountains? Well I guess they can stop moaning now, Israel is currently attempting to destroy those facilities, either with bunker busters dropped from planes, or Israeli special forces units planting explosives within them.
A nice summary of all the horrors Milei has inflicted on the Argentinian people.
The decision comes after the Irish government said it would ask the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to broaden its definition of genocide - claiming Israel has engaged in the "collective punishment" of people in Gaza. Israel's foreign minister has ordered the closure of the country's embassy in Dublin, citing the Irish government's "extreme anti-Israel policy". Gideon Sa'ar said "Ireland has crossed every red line in its relations with Israel".
"The actions and antisemitic rhetoric used by Ireland against Israel are rooted in the delegitimisation and demonisation of the Jewish state, along with double standards," he said in a statement. The minister pointed to Ireland's decision earlier this year to recognise a Palestinian state, for which Israel recalled its ambassador from Dublin.
The move also comes after the Irish government said it would ask the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to broaden its definition of genocide - claiming Israel has engaged in the "collective punishment" of people in Gaza. Ireland's taoiseach (prime minister) said in a statement that the decision is "deeply regrettable", and that "keeping channels open has never been more important so that we can better understand each other's positions, even when we disagree".
Simon Harris added: "I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-international law. Israel will instead "adjust our diplomatic network of missions" to strengthen ties with countries that want to do the same with Israel, but do not yet have an embassy.
For that reason, Mr Sa'ar said Israel will open an embassy in Moldova, and has instructed officials to find a suitable building and initiate the process of appointing an ambassador.
⚠️ Warning – Graphic
Videos have emerged from across Syria showing extremist opposition elements, some of them wearing ISIS patches, carrying out sectarian field executions and revenge killings of supporters of Assad's government, former Syrian Arab Army officers, and Alawite civilians.
- : Oi you, tell us the number of nukes you have, yeah.
: No stuff in his reading list about dealing with back pain from surgery (including stuff about depression), maybe has been out of contact with his friends and family for months (if twitter screenshots are to be believed), was in NY sometimes around the shooting, had a manifesto and a gun with a suppressor on it when he was arrested (although could always be bs fed by the cops ig?), i think they got him, i think anyone saying otherwise is coping tbh. as for why he was so sloppy like this after seemingly planning this (relatively) cleanly at first? well, i think he saw how ecstatic the internet has been over it and wanted the recognition for it (and also, maybe he thinks he can get off scot free because of it?)
Tiktok is telling me that the adjuster's family wealth was from a network of nursing homes. They were generally of very poor quality to say the least (I'm fucking disgusted, but that's US healthcare/elder care for you, nothing too new), and his LinkedIn shows that he volunteered at these homes.
It's likely that his experiences witnessing industrialized elder abuse had a strong effect on his views.
@tiffanycianci is the creator who pulled the research into a video if you want to look it up. Someone should grab it and post to tankietube or something.
A bunch of towers in my city have festive red, green, and white lights up in high windows. In my head canon it’s all Italian solidarity for Luigi
Russian Channel One, quoting sources in the Kremlin: 'Former President Bashar al-Assad and his family have arrived safely in Moscow'. Leaders of the armed Syrian opposition have guaranteed the security of Russian military bases and diplomatic institutions on Syrian territory, Russian media reported, citing the Kremlin.
'Iran warned Assad two months ago that HTS was preparing to make a move, but he dismissed the threat. So the Turkish Foreign Minister gave us assurances that nothing will take place, which turned out to be a lie. After HTS entered Western Aleppo, Iran expected Assad to ask for military assistance, and we were fully prepared to oblige with troops and whatever else was needed – but no such request came. After Aleppo fell, it became clear that Assad had no real intentions of staying in power, so we started to engage in diplomatic talks with the opposition, and arranged the safe exit of our troops from Syria. If the SAA does not fight, neither will we risk our soldiers' lives. Russia and the UAE had managed to convince him to step down, so there was nothing we could do.' – Iranian Officials
Idk if this is true, could be Iranian cope or Assad really was this dumb
Ex-defense chief suspected of plotting war with North Korea to justify martial law
Kim Yong-hyun is said to have called for strikes on sites from which North Korea was launching trash balloons and sending drones over Pyongyang
spoiler
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1172239.html
There are mounting suspicions that former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun intended to justify the declaration of martial law or a state of united defense by instigating a military conflict with North Korea by ordering strikes on the sites from which the North was launching trash-filled balloons and flying unmanned drones to Pyongyang.
Democratic Party lawmaker Park Beom-kye revealed Monday that he received a tip-off from a military whistleblower that the unmanned drones North Korea claimed Seoul had sent to Pyongyang in October were indeed sent on orders of the South Korean military — more specifically, on the orders of the former defense minister.
“The Defense Counterintelligence Command, formerly led by Yeo In-hyeong, yet another high school classmate of Kim’s, planned the specifics of the operation,” Park claimed, suggesting that it was “clear that this plan was conceived to offer a pretext for the invocation of martial law.”
A reference document on the operation of martial law troops and a joint investigation headquarters issued in November under the orders of Yeo, made public by the Democratic Party on Sunday, show that the Defense Counterintelligence Command reviewed the possibility of the simultaneous declaration of martial law and united defense to execute military responses and control public order and security in the event of a crisis, such as armed conflict with North Korea.
The document claimed that martial law and united defense could be declared simultaneously in the case of “enemy infiltration, provocation and domestic circumstances.”
According to current law, martial law is to be declared “in time of war, incident or other equivalent national emergency,” while united defense — a way of consolidating the country’s defense elements under a unified command — should be declared to respond to the “enemy’s infiltration, provocation, or threat of infiltration or provocation.” Both must be declared by the president.
Before publicizing the contents of the document, Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Ki-heon claimed to have received information on how, only one week prior to the declaration of martial law, Kim had ordered Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairperson Adm. Kim Myung-soo to “fire warning shots before striking launch sites of North Korea’s trash-filled balloons” if any such balloons were seen floating in South Korean skies.
For that to happen, South Korean soldiers would have to attack North Korea’s southwestern Hwanghae region, where the trash balloons are being sent from, which could easily escalate into a limited war.
In response, the Joint Chiefs of Staff denied allegations about such orders on Saturday, claiming that “no orders intending to escalate conflict took place.” However, it did not deny the discussions on targeting launch sites, saying, “The military conducts discussions on various operational situations from time to time.”
According to military officials, Kim Yong-hyun expressed a desire to strike the launch sites of North Korea’s trash balloons, but Kim Myung-soo responded by saying that such a move would be inconsistent with the current response policy, which stipulates that such strikes should only take place in case of tangible harm.
In September, as trash-filled balloons continued to cross the border, the Joint Chiefs had said that the South Korean military would take “decisive military action if it was determined that serious damage to our national security has occurred or if North Korea crosses a line.”
The Joint Chiefs said they were unable to confirm information in response to questions concerning the unmanned drones supposedly flown into Pyongyang.
By Kwon Hyuk-chul, staff reporter
Funniest thing that could happen:
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Trump becomes President, decides to stick it to Mexico. Breaks off all diplomatic relations.
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Mexico stops doing trade or anything else with the United States.
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The next day, the Adjuster livestreams himself from a beach in Mexico, proves that he's the Adjuster, and says his real name. Mexico won't extradite him.
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Earlier this morning, Russia conducted a 6 and a half hour long missile attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and military targets, one of the longest attacks of the war so far, consisting of between 90-100 missiles. Before the missile phase of this attack, Russia also launched a large Geran-2 drone attack to soften up Ukraine's defenses of between 190-200 drones. Ukrainian sources state that the combined two phase attack consisted of between 280-300 missiles and drones combined. They claimed to have shot down 81 missiles and 80 drones, and 105 drones "lost their targets" (this shoot down claim doesn't even deserve any serious consideration, I'm only including it to give an idea of the amount of missiles and drones fired).
Note: each icon consists of a group of drones and cruise missiles, and not a single missile.
Drones were all of type Geran-2, a Russian variant of the Shahed 136 (yellow on the graphic, 190-200 launched). The missile attack consisted of Kh-101 air launched, subsonic, low flying cruise missiles launched from Tu-95M strategic bombers (purple, 50-60 launched), Kh-22/32 high flying, supersonic air launched cruise missiles likely launched from Tupolev Tu-22M strategic bombers (green, 1 launched), Kh-59 air launched, subsonic, low flying cruise missiles that can be launched from a variety of Russian fighter-bomber aircraft (in this case Su-30s were the suspected carriers)(pink, 1-2 launched), Kalibir subsonic low flying cruise missiles launched from the Black sea fleet (blue, 20-30 launched), Iskander ballistic missiles launched from the ground (olive green, 5-10 launched), and Kinzhal air launched ballistic missiles launched from MiG-31K aircraft (white, 4-8 launched).
As a result over 50% of Ukraine is said to be without electricity today. Remember, there are hard limits to any de-electrification of Ukraine, Russia cannot strike the sources supplying secondary power to Ukraine's nuclear power plants significantly, such a move could endanger the stability of the reactors. This is a continuation of Russia's de-electrification campaign in Ukraine, and the attack has been planned for some days/weeks, with movements of strategic bombers. Just before this attack by Russia was launched, Ukraine fired US made and targeted ATACMS ballistic missiles at Russia, striking targets within it's internationally recognised borders.
I'm guessing this was done to frame this Russian attack as a panicked response, rather than a predetermined and planned attack. Russia has in fact been on the front foot the entire time, the first large missile attack of this winter took place before Ukraine got permission to use long range US, UK and French weapons to strike Russian territory. Ukraine is likely trying to reframe that. Initially this was done by stating that the permission to launch attacks into Russia using ATACMS and Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles was because of North Korean soldiers, now it's being done by launching ATACMS attacks just before Russian attacks.
In response, I'll guess that Ukraine is planning to launch a Strom Shadow/SCALP attack on Russia. Ukrainian MiG-29 escort aircraft, which carry anti radiation US made HARM missiles to suppress air defences, escorting the Su-24 bombers carrying the Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles to their launch sites, have been spotted making strategic movements. Ukraine could also be bluffing though, too much is unknown. But do not be surprised if there's another Storm Shadow/SCALP attack in the coming days.
Ukrainian claimed shoot down numbers, again just for an idea of what was fired
FACTOR (arts organization in Canada that dispenses grants to musicians) had almost $10 million stolen from its account at Scotiabank, which was then converted to crypto and used to buy crypto-mining equipment.
Only 1 person in the country was meant to have access to the bank account, but Scotiabank just let a random outlook email address take all the money without flagging that or like...following up in any way. FACTOR is taking them to court to get them to pay the money back, obviously.
In a similar vein: in NB, a charity for homeless people had $3000 stolen from its Scotiabank account because Scotiabank didn't do anything when the account's info got changed to some other email.
Ford is threatening to end energy exports to the US if Trump goes ahead with the tariffs. Electricity from Ontario powers about 1.5 million houses in the US.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/doug-ford-tariff-threat-energy-exports-1.7408644
""That's okay if he does that. That's fine," Trump told a CNBC reporter."
https://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1868177840048628167#m
Arnaud Bertrand on Syria compared to China and Xinjiang
By the way, interesting to contrast China's response to this challenge with Assad's. Whilst Syria broke down in a full scale civil war, China did indeed operate a "crackdown" that involved identifying all the people in Xinjiang who empathized with this ideology and sending them to what it called "vocational education and training centers" (and what the West calls "reeducation centers"), where they were basically given a choice: either re-integrate into society by learning a useful skill (hence the vocational education and training aspect) or you'll be headed to prison next. They ran this program during approximately 2 years until December 2019.
At the same time, China spent a considerable amount of resources developing Xinjiang which saw its GDP per capita increase by 150% since 2011, whilst Syria's own GDP per capita was divided by 5 with the civil war. They notably developed the tourism industry, transforming Xinjiang into one of the most visited Chinese provinces, with an astounding 265.44 million tourist visits in 2023 alone. Xinjiang's GDP per capita (around US$10,469,) is now higher than countries like Brazil, Thailand or Vietnam.
The point of the post isn't really the comparison with Syria, as it's much smaller and more limited in options, but good analysis of the state of Xinjiang 5-6 years after the so called uyghur genocide
The United States' response to the unveiling of the Russian Oreshnik Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapon occurred recently on the 12 December, with the first ever full scale complete test of the US' own CPS weapon, the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) system, nicknamed the "Dark Eagle", containing the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (CHGB). I'll do a post on it tomorrow or within the next few days. You can read the archive of the US DoD report on the test so long and research it if you want.
Full article text, click/touch/tap here to expand and view.
The U.S. Army's Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, in collaboration with the U.S. Navy Strategic Systems Programs, recently completed a successful end-to-end flight test of a conventional hypersonic missile from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
"This test builds on several flight tests in which the Common Hypersonic Glide Body achieved hypersonic speed at target distances and demonstrates that we can put this capability in the hands of the warfighter," said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth.
This is the second successful end-to-end flight test of the All Up Round (AUR) this year and was the first live-fire event for the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon system using a Battery Operations Center and a Transporter Erector Launcher.
"This test marks an important milestone in the development of one of our most advanced weapons systems. As we approach the first delivery of this capability to our Army partners, we will continue to press forward to integrate Conventional Prompt Strike into our Navy surface and subsurface ships to help ensure we remain the world's preeminent fighting force," said Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro.
Information gathered from this test will support the first Army Operational Deployment of the common hypersonic AUR, as well as a Navy sea-based fielding.
"This test is a demonstration of the successful Navy and Army partnership that has allowed us to develop a transformational hypersonic weapon system that will deliver unmatched capability to meet joint warfighting needs," said Vice Adm. Johnny R. Wolfe Jr, Director, Navy's Strategic Systems Programs, which is the lead designer of the common hypersonic missile.
The Services common hypersonic AUR supports the National Defense Strategy and will provide combatant commanders with diverse capabilities to sustain and strengthen integrated deterrence and to build enduring advantages for the Joint Force.
Hypersonic systems – capable of flying at speeds greater than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) –provide a combination of speed, range, maneuverability, and altitude that enables highly survivable and rapid defeat of time-critical and heavily-defended targets.
"The responsiveness, maneuverability and survivability of hypersonic weapons is unmatched by traditional strike capabilities for precision targeting, especially in anti-access/area denial environments," said Lt. Gen. Robert A. Rasch, Director of Hypersonics, Directed Energy, Space and Rapid Acquisitions for RCCTO.
The U.S. Army RCCTO and U.S. Navy SSP programs are partnered to rapidly field land and sea variants of a hypersonic weapon system that will meet critical joint warfighting needs. The use of a common hypersonic missile and joint test opportunities allow the Services to pursue a more aggressive timeline for delivery and realize cost savings. The collaboration between RCCTO and SSP enables the Services to stay ahead of emerging threats and maintain a decisive advantage on the battlefield.
On a more lighthearted note, Oreshnik vs Dark Eagle, which name does everyone prefer in this battle of the new age CPS weapons? Feel free to comment your opinion. To me Dark Eagle sounds way too cheesy and supervillain like, or like the name of a new pickup truck or Corvette, while Oreshnik (hazel tree/flower) makes sense, as the warheads form streaks in the air that look like a hazel flower shape when cutting through the atmosphere and impacting the ground. Though naming a destructive weapon after nature might be too much for some. I'm team Oreshnik here, at least on the name.
More evidence something funny happened in Russia on Sunday Dec 7:
They write to us here that the call sign Kim was introduced on the last day, "and early in the morning of the 7th they broke into Plekhovo from three sides and this was the last day, then Plekhovo fell." That is, the Russian Army allowed the already strangled Ukrainian Armed Forces to win. Like an adult cat teaching a young one to hunt half-dead mice. There is no need to belittle either the merits of the Russian Armed Forces in the toughest battles, or to downplay the successes of the Kims . The truth is in the middle. But in general, the topic is still taboo, although we personally do not see anything wrong with showing the participation of all the healthy countries of the world in the fight against Nazism.
Comrades Two Majors wrote everything correctly : the truth is somewhere in the middle. Yes, indeed, not in 2, but in a few hours, the fighters "with the call sign Kim" demolished several streets. The term "demolished" is used correctly, because they say that they are pushing forward like tanks, despite the losses, demolishing everyone in their path. Before that, for two weeks, Plekhovo was systematically liberated by units of the Ministry of Defense and "Pyatnashka". By the way, as expected, the units "with the call sign Kim" work separately on tasks, because we are all the same to them...
Settlement was taken exclusively by the North Korean Special Operations Forces. In 2 hours. They passed through like a hurricane, did not take prisoners. The enemy lost more than 300 servicemen
Nearly 50 NATO vehicles scattered on Plekhovo streets after its liberation
I’m still in early stages of learning Russian so i’m relying on google translate here but I think he is saying RF let DPRK perform some of the final clearing of Plekhovo as a live fire training exercise. If its true then DPRK just had a smol engagement with NAFO on the battlefield and prevailed. Russians are letting the story drip out as a warning and a troll.
pure speculation on my part, but ive been thinking a lot about syria and the axis of resistance as a whole, i really wonder if so much of what we saw as potential cowardice from hezbollah and especially iran was because they knew something was irreparably wrong in the Syrian government and didnt want to be over extended when the collapse came.
Dementia Incidence Linked to Inflammatory Foods
Key takeaways
- stop eating processed foods
- limit calories
- having sex doesn’t decrease risk, regular volcel W
- basically the western diet is shit
The Washington Post reports that U.S. officials are considering removing Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the list of foreign terrorist organizations The UK government is also open to the idea, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer states that a change in policy now is 'far too early.'
On 9 December 2024, following the fall of the Assad regime, al-Bashir was tasked with forming a transitional government after meeting with HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani and outgoing Syrian prime minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali to coordinate a transfer of power. The next day he was officially tasked to head the transitional government until 1 March 2025
I've heard that most non-Western countries are still not sure whether to recognize this Syrian government, since HTS is still considered a terrorist group (even by the US). There's also the fact that the whole country is unstable and the leadership could change in the near future.
Some Syria news for today.
The big news of the day is that former officers and soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army’s 25th Special Mission Forces Division (Tiger Forces) are organizing in the coastal, mountainous areas near Lebanon and have vowed to continue fighting against the Western-backed terrorists. The announcement is very reminiscent of how Green resistance forces continued fighting against Western-backed terrorists in Libya for many years after NATO destroyed the Jamahiriya: https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/1866927900886467014
Iranian Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei stated, “The more they fight the resistance, the wider its front will be, and it will be stronger and include the entire region … America is trying to establish a foothold in the region, but it will not achieve its goals, and the resistance front will expel the Americans from the region”: https://thecradle.co/articles/fall-of-syria-planned-in-us-israeli-war-rooms-khamenei
Turkish-backed “SNA” and al-Queda “HTS” forces captured the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor from Washington’s “SDF” proxies: https://sputnikglobe.com/20241211/what-is-the-strategic-importance-of-deir-ez-zor-and-could-it-cause-new-kurdish-syrian-conflict-1121150295.html
Traitorous elements controlling Syria’s Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party announced the suspension of the party’s activities: https://tass.com/world/1886169
The Western-backed terrorist onslaught has now displaced over one million Syrians: https://tass.com/world/1886137
A talk about a Chinese review of Sinwar's book the thorn and the carnation, some discussion of the parallels between the Palestine occupation and in Japanese occupied China, also of popular sentiment in China about the situation in Palestine.
President Maduro: US-backed opposition is intent on replicating circumstances of Syria in Venezuela
"We're observing the development of painful circumstances for the people of Syria. Now, the fascist extremists are coming out to ask for a civil war to be waged in Venezuela.."
"We've gone through psychological warfare, political warfare, economic warfare, conspiracies.. the Empire and the fascist right-wing have run out of conspiracy manuals."
"When the gringo army criminally entered Iraq in 2003, they asked the gringos to do the same in Venezuela."
"When the gringos entered Libya and bombed and killed thousands, they asked him to come and bomb and kill Chavez.. He said that Venezuela is not Libya. Venezuela is the homeland of the liberators.. We regret that barbaric attack that dismembered and tore Libya to pieces.."
"When in 2014 Nazi groups staged the coup in Kiev, Ukraine and killed dozens of innocent people and seized power.. they also said 'the time has come, now it is Venezuela's turn..' In 2014, our people, with the Constitution in hand, defeated the guarimba and the attempt to lead our beloved Venezuela to a civil war.
Sources are confirming Nancy is out of surgery and is expected to make a full recovery! A member of the press snapped this image of her and asked how she was feeling “good morning” she replied
"Israel" to deploy remotely operated machine guns against Palestinians in occupied West Bank | The Cradle
article
The "Israeli" army is preparing to deploy automated, remotely monitored machine guns to protect illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, "Israeli" Army Radio reported on 15 December.
The automated weapons, developed by Rafael Combat Systems, will be installed on watch towers around dozens of settlements and near their entrances. They will be controlled remotely from command centers "to prevent armed attacks and infiltration operations."
The same system was installed on the Gaza border in 2008 and operated by spotters in bases. However, it failed to prevent fighters from the Islamic Resistance movement, Hamas, from approaching and breaching the barrier fence to attack settlements and "Israeli" military bases on 7 October 2023.
During Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Qassam Brigades fighters reportedly used attack drones to disable the automated weapons during the first hours of the operation.
The army will first deploy the weapons in locations it defines as ‘high-risk,’ and expand their deployment over time to include additional locations.
According to the report, the 636th Reconnaissance Unit of the Army's West Bank Division will operate the systems.
"Israeli" soldiers and settlers have escalated their attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of "Israel's" genocidal war on Gaza last year.
The "Israeli" army and settlers have killed 812 Palestinians and injured 6,500 in the West Bank since that time.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has provided over 120,000 firearms to Jewish settlers in the West Bank since the outbreak of the Gaza War.
"Over 120,000 weapons were distributed to eligible citizens, while tens of thousands more received conditional approvals," Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power Party, said on his X account in October.
"We intend to continue arming Israel. That's what we did, and that's what we'll continue to do!"
Ben Gvir and fellow Jewish supremacist politician and minister have announced their desire to use the Jewish settlers to expel the indigenous Palestinian population from the occupied West Bank and annex it to "Israel".
After Donald Trump's election to the US presidency in November, Ben Gvir, himself a resident of the Kiryat Arba settlement, declared that "this is the time for sovereignty" over the West Bank.
On 9 December, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government in Syra, Bezalel Smotrich called for increased Jewish settlement and establishing “facts on the ground” to ensure a Palestinian state would never be established.
The Sri Lankan Left Won Big in the Elections and Is Already Capitulating to the IMF Hexbear Post
The Sri Lankan Left won unprecedented success in recent legislative elections. Against the promises of his campaign, however, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is already walking hand in hand with the IMF and preparing severe austerity measures.
On November 21, in his first speech to parliament, AKD went back immediately on his campaign promise and announced that he would “focus on maintaining economic stability and reaffirming trust with the various stakeholders in the economic world.” The day after, the IMF welcomed the discussions held with the new administration and announced the agreement of an additional $333 million as part of an economic plan implemented in 2022.
Yukon could get new Indigenous protected area the size of Vancouver Island Hexbear Post
In a statement, Chief Dylan Loblaw said, “Ross River Dena Council is pleased to be advancing efforts to finalize our IPCA Declaration within our Ross River Area. This Declaration is issued pursuant to our Indigenous laws, and will help ensure our rights, interests and values are properly respected in this important area.”
The proposed protected area is home to the at-risk Finlayson caribou herd, which are part of the northern mountain woodland caribou listed as a species of special concern under the federal Species At Risk Act. The area also encompasses ancient village sites and a group trapline built in the 1800s, and many sites that are sacred to the nation.
If established, the protected area would protect about eight per cent of Yukon’s land mass. Currently, Yukon has protected and conserved 21.1 per cent of lands. The federal government’s goal is to protect 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030, meaning Tū Łī́dlini could bring Yukon to the cusp of meeting the 30 by 30 goal on its own terms.
Cops Are Making Their Own Crack Cocaine! - Left Voice Hexbear Post
Florida’s Broward County is poised to erase the criminal convictions of thousands of people who were arrested for purchasing drugs, particularly crack cocaine. Why, you may ask? Did the holiday season lead Broward county’s Supreme Court to suddenly grow a heart, Grinch-style, realizing punitive measures to address drug use and addiction will never help people? No, it’s because it was found that those drugs were produced by the cops themselves in the Sheriff’s office. You sure did read that right. As reported by Democracy Now, “For years, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office produced crack cocaine to be sold by undercover police to the public.” The cops in Florida produced their own crack cocaine, then sold it to the public who they then targeted for arrest.
President Maduro Welcomes Heads of State at 24th ALBA-TCP Summit in Venezuela (+Guatemala, Palestine & Haiti) – Orinoco Tribune Hexbear Post
Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, welcomed the heads of state and government of the ALBA countries as well as all the delegations that will participate at the 24th Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) at the Simón Bolívar Convention Center in La Carlota, Caracas, on Saturday, December 14.
Earlier on Friday, in a preparatory meeting at the Foreign Ministry headquarters, >Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil said, “At the heart of the revolutionary, anti-imperialist and Bolivarian Caracas, we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty, the vital nucleus of the independence, dignity and sovereignty of the Great Homeland … Two visionaries like Commanders Chávez and Fidel were able to unite their capabilities and take the bold step, full of convictions and morals, to urge Latin America and the Caribbean that we must move forward, build together and unite all the forces of a heroic continent that has achieved so many feats for centuries, for its definitive liberation.”
PDF: Performance Audit of San Francisco Police Department Overtime
I can’t copy and paste from this on my phone, but just read the executive summary. Average of 25.5 sick days per employee per year! $108m in overtime! $30.8m on overtime for high visibility policing outside of Macy’s in Union Square!
Oinkoinkoinkoink
Israeli airstrikes on ex SAA military installations in Syria are continuing. A massive ammunition depot in Tartus was just hit, resulting in a huge amount of secondary explosions from the ammunition cooking off, explosions that may still be ongoing at this time, and hours from now, depending on how much ammunition was stored at the facility.
Image with zero reverse search results on TinEye
Videos showing secondary explosions, twitter source
Anyone living nearby should stay indoors for their own safety for the time being, being hit by a stray artillery round or rocket that went off or is going to go off is a possibility. Some videos of similar strikes in the past have shown rocket artillery cooking off and flying in all directions.
This video shows an impact alarmingly close to the camera person
Managed to geolocate the apparent target by finding some similar looking houses to the photo, and using some preliminary earthquake data posted on twitter (3.0 on the Richter scale apparently), looks like an air defence base/site (or a military installation this air defence system was protecting nearby) visible on Google maps, co ordinates 34.847786N 35.989365E
A lot of ammunition must've been stored there for such a massive explosion, with secondaries, to occur. I'm guessing the air defence system protecting this site was a S-125 variant based off of the missile shape. While a Soviet era system first produced in the 1960s with a range between 15-35km depending on the variant, it is notable that the S-125 was the system that shot down a stealth F-117 Nighthawk bomber in Yugoslavia, as well as having shot down multiple F-16s during various conflicts. So still capable against modern aircraft in certain situations. With it not being operational, we can see the end result...
Today’s Syria news.
The Zionist invaders now control 20 towns and villages in southern Syria. This article also contains a map (click on the map image to view a larger version) showing the parts of southern Syria that the Zionist invaders currently occupy (plus parts of the already previously occupied Golan Heights): https://news-pravda.com/img/20241215/a06bc2f119c0ef47071af945ad28ee02_o.jpg
Meanwhile, the al-Queda “HTS” leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (AKA “Abu Mohammad al-Jolani”) refuses to call on Syrians to fight against the Zionists: https://southfront.press/tahrir-al-sham-zionism-turkiye-and-iran-the-situation-is-rapidly-becoming-more-complicated/
Turkey warned that it will shoot down Zionist warplanes if they attack Turkish-backed “SNA” forces in northern Syria: https://en.news-front.su/2024/12/14/turkey-intends-to-shoot-down-israeli-armed-forces-planes-in-syria-yeni-safak/
New Florida Prison Policy on Trans Health Care ‘Like Conversion Therapy’
Under the new policy, the Department of Corrections stated that the prisons will only provide those with gender dysphoria with psychotherapy — and not cross-gender hormones — except “in rare instances … if necessary to comply with the U.S. Constitution or a court decision.” The policy argues that “unaddressed psychiatric issues and unaddressed childhood trauma could lead to a misdiagnosis of gender dysphoria,” and that cross-gender hormones “may be requested by persons experiencing short-termed delusions or beliefs which may later be changed and reversed.”...
Since then, more than a dozen transgender people said corrections officers ordered them to cut their hair. Mariko Sundwall told The Marshall Project that she was given a disciplinary infraction and spent 10 days in solitary confinement for refusing to cut her hair before officers put her in handcuffs and led her to the prison barber where her hair was cropped short.
I don't have anything to say, heartbreaking and scary. Full article has more information but I thought those were two of the most relevant paragraphs.
I'm not a westener nor do I live in a western country. It feels in many ways like a repeat of Bangladesh. People thinking based epic chungus Yunus will fix all the problems.
Is Bangladesh free from unemployment? Of course not. Their new Government has decided to cut the budget due to high interest payments combined with controls on deficits.
(Hasina wasn't even remotely as repressive as Assad btw, I'm not saying that. But she did have her skeletons, see "Aynaghor")
what if assad levels up and becomes a trump cabinet pick
🟡🟢 Hezbollah statement on the situation in Syria — In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
The ongoing crimes committed by the zionist enemy on Syrian territory—whether through the occupation of additional lands in the Golan Heights or by striking and destroying the defensive capabilities of the Syrian state—constitute blatant aggression and a brazen violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian state and people. These actions exacerbate the destabilization of this brotherly nation.
This aggressive occupation of Syrian lands coincides with the ongoing zionist military aggression against Lebanon, its daily violations, and its assaults on Gaza. These interconnected threats place the region’s peoples in imminent danger, underscoring the unity of their struggle and the necessity of rejecting and confronting this aggression.
We, while condemning these attacks, warn of the consequences of their continuation. We also call on the international community, particularly the Arab and Islamic worlds, to adopt firm stances against these crimes and to exert pressure in all political and legal arenas to halt this series of aggressions. All the justifications presented by the enemy are baseless fabrications.
The enemy’s repeated attempts to seize new Syrian lands cannot establish any legitimate rights. These actions are nothing more than ongoing occupation, entrenched in the Golan Heights since 1967.
We affirm our steadfast support for Syria and its people, emphasizing the importance of preserving the unity of Syria—its land and its people.
Monday, 09-12-2024
7 Jumada al-Akhirah 1446 AH
me a cia lackey
I knock on a door at the cia warehouse and a guard lets me in.
a large room full of shelves
I see the shooter’s backpack, trump piss tapes, missing footage from Epstein’s jail cell.
I make my way past the Bolsonaro campaign buttons, the Brexit stickers, the color revolution banners: blue and yellow, orange, red and white.
I get to the last shelf and toss the ‘Assad must go’ poster on top of the other ‘must go’ posters. Gaddafi must go, Saddam must go, Noriega must go, Sukarno must go.
I make my way back to the exit.
“Take it easy Jimmy” the guard says. “I wouldn’t take it any other way Pops” I reply. Another day another dollar.
Greenwashed: IKEA's Destructive Forestry Practices Revealed
IKEA, self-proclaimed champion of responsible forestry, has been exposed clearcutting Romania's old-growth forests, leaving barren "lunar landscapes." Despite promises of sustainability, critics slam their monoculture oak replanting as profit-driven greenwashing. Forestry experts call IKEA’s practices "completely of the mark".
Read more
"We love wood, we love forests!" So declares IKEA, the global purveyor of disposable furniture, in a glossy promotional video. Staying true to their Scandinavian rainbow capitalist branding, IKEA extols the virtues of wood as a sustainable material, backed by lofty claims of eco-friendly forestry practices.
In Romania where IKEA is the largest owner of forests, the Carpathian old-growth forests are not feeling the love. Drone footage from a forest near the Ukrainian border shown in a recent documentary by Danish state media DR shows how large square patches of what used to be pristine woodland has been cut completely clear, resembling what a forestry expert calls "a lunar landscape". A total of 12 hectares has been cut down with IKEA planning to fell the entire forest.
Using a staggering 20 million cubic metres of lumber a year, IKEA is one of the world's largest consumers of wood. If all the logs used by IKEA were put next to eachother they would reach around the globe seven times.
The lumber from these forests bears the FSC stamp, assuring the guilty conscience of eco-conscious consumers that the wood has been harvested in an ethical and sustainable way. The Romanian FSC standards requires loggers to leave at least one large old-growth, a so-called habitat tree, tree per hectare standing to help flora and wildlife recover. It is also against the standards to cut down trees with birds' nests. Romanian standards are already lax, with for instance Danish FSC standards requiring at least five habitat trees per hectare. The drone footage shows that not a single tree has been left standing.
The drone footage tells a different story: not a single tree has been left standing in the clearcut areas. In another Romanian forest, IKEA left behind a single, severely damaged tree with a broken canopy—technically fulfilling the bare minimum FSC requirements. Jacob Heilmann Clausen, a forestry expert from the University of Copenhagen, criticized this approach, pointing out that a truly sustainable practice would leave many more habitat trees intact. He calls IKEA's practices "completely off the mark for what you would call sustainable forestry in 2024".
Destroying The Forest To Save The Forest
When confronted with the damning drone footage, Simon Henzell-Thomas, global director of climate and environment for Ingka Group, IKEA's parent company, conceded that no habitat trees remained in the clearcut areas. He explained that habitat trees would eventually be located in the untouched portions of the forest—once logging in those areas is complete. In his words, habitat trees are implemented “on a landscape level, not hectare by hectare.”
Henzell-Thomas further claimed that IKEA has had a positive impact on Romania's forests since it began logging there in 2015, boasting that the company has “saved” the forests and increased their density. “We love wood, we love forests!” he exclaimed, echoing IKEA’s promotional mantra.
Illegal logging remains a serious problem in Romania. Local contractors of IKEA has been fined for overharvesting, for damaging remaining trees and for constructing illegal logging roads.
"Newspeak Invented For The Occasion"
Simon Henzell-Thomas rejects the term clearcutting to describe IKEA's practice of removing every single tree in a logged area. He insists that IKEA "improves" the forest by planting new trees to replace those felled. After completely razing an area, IKEA replants small oak saplings encased in plastic tubes, resulting in a monoculture rather than a diverse ecosystem.
Henzell-Thomas refers to this approach as “substitute cutting” and asserts that it is a well-established forestry method. However, two forestry experts consulted by DR had never encountered the term. “I think it’s a form of newspeak invented for the occasion to distract from having done unsustainable logging,” said Jacob Heilmann Clausen.
Defending the practice of "substitute cutting", Henzell-Thomas claimed that IKEA is replacing invasive species with oaks. "It is better for the soil and better for the long-term health of the forest" he claimed.
Jacob Heilmann Clausen points out that an oak monoculture is certainly not going to improve biodiversity.
Moreover, the trees being cut down by IKEA are not invasive species but native ones, such as hornbeam. Henzell-Thomas claims that oak is "more suitable" for the mountainous area. Although not mentioned by the IKEA representative, oak also happens to be a more commercially valuable species than hornbeam.
The FSC organisation, of which IKEA is a founding member, refused requests for an interview with DR but in a written response that have stated that they "take input from experts seriously" and said they investigate credible concerns.
- Source: DR (state media), December 10th 2024
https://old.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1hbdezi/removed_by_reddit/
admins deleted a post containing Luigi's manifesto, citing their content policy (???). The post currently remains at the top of /r/all.Edit: They are nuking a lot of the comments in the thread as well (I guess other people posting the manifesto).
TD Eoin Hayes suspended by Soc Dems with immediate effect
(A TD is an Irish member of parliament. Eoin Hayes was just elected in the Irish general election less than two weeks ago)
He was suspended for lying about selling Palantir stocks. He said he sold his stocks before he entered politics, it turns out he sold them about six months later. That's why the Social Democrats suspended him.
This man worked for fucking Palantir, received 7000 shares as part of his contract, so clearly was doing something consequential. That's not a problem for the SocDems apparently, what matters is that he lied about selling his shares. Utter sacks of shit.
These Social Democrats appear to be the moderate wing of fascism
The only upside is that this has thoroughly owned my radlib housemate who held up his election pamphlet and said "vote for him if you have a conscience"
The Chihuahua of Copenhagen, Denmark's Social Democrat leader Mette Frederiksen, is barking again.
When asked today for comment on a stream of recent IT system breakdowns and scathing criticism of efforts to protect critical IT systems she bombastically stated that "We must inflict significantly more defeats on Russia. Because they're threatening all of us, also on cybersecurity".
For most people saying "Putin is at it again" when the WiFi is down is a joke, but to Denmark's political elite it is reality.
Ken Klippenstein just broke the Manifesto. I made a thread too.
Forgot my first link comrades.
A little news and combat footage from the Donbass and Kursk oblast.
This news article discusses Russian forces’ recent advances and includes a big collection of combat footage videos (some are 18+): https://southfront.press/ukraine-faces-the-loss-of-five-cities-russias-offensive-gains-momentum/
Racist, British imperialist disinformation about “North Korean soldiers in Kursk” was exposed as laughable fake news: https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/DMNK:3
Emmanuel Macron has appointed a centrist to the post of Prime Minister François Bayrou. Bayrou is a centrist who used to belong to the ranks of the left and his choice raises the suspicion that Macron is trying to dissolve left-wing unity in the National Assembly.
The idea, it seems, is to distance the Socialists from the Communards, breaking the New Popular Front in half. Macron's advisers say that Bayrou will have to talk to all the parties “except Réunion Nationale and France Insubmissive, located ‘at the extremes of the spectrum’.
The Socialists have published a letter stating that they will not be part of François Bayrou's government and that they will remain united with the entire left in opposition to Macron in Parliament. What's more, Bayrou looks set to be the target of a Motion of No Confidence before he even officially takes office as Prime Minister.
Misinfo they’re just regular fascists doing regular fascist things
Soldiers (Terrorists) from the 188th Armored Brigade sing "Hatikvah" (the Israeli national anthem) on Syrian territory.
In one fell swoop, the US expelled Russian presence from the Mediterranean, drove a wedge between Russia and Iran, further isolated Hezbollah and Palestine, scared away African and Middle Eastern states that sought Russia for protection, disciplined Saudi Arabia, and most importantly, fractured the Axis of Resistance.
They identified a weak point among their enemies and unlike the BRICS and the Resistance, acted decisively. Years of effort came undone in a matter of days. This is what happens when you keep dragging your feet. The more you think about it, the scarier it gets. And the immense suffering that will now take place in the wake of the Syrian collapse.
i wondered when the New Leadership will react to Israels bombing runs , seems like they use them as Bad ass backround to make Pictures .. fun fact . Jolani is named after the Golan Heights , apperently he is from there .. Kinda nice that that the new leadership is named after what he gives to Israel... But they need to Hurry up , i have a Inclination that it will turn out that Damascus was Part of Ancient Israel all along.
https://xcancel.com/Kalibrated_Maps/status/1866259550074212660#m
Russia seems to be finally making the push to cut Pokrovsk off from supply.
Pokrovsk is an incredibly important rail and logistics hub, not to mention defensive position, so I don't see Ukraine giving it up without a fight. If it falls quickly, they are so fucking cooked.
Also, Russia has reportedly been shuffling bombers between air bases lately, among other preparations, which suggests another cruise missile volley soon.
Ex-defense chief [of South Korea] suspected of plotting war with North Korea to justify martial law
There are mounting suspicions that former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun intended to justify the declaration of martial law or a state of united defense by instigating a military conflict with North Korea by ordering strikes on the sites from which the North was launching trash-filled balloons and flying unmanned drones to Pyongyang.
Democratic Party lawmaker Park Beom-kye revealed Monday that he received a tip-off from a military whistleblower that the unmanned drones North Korea claimed Seoul had sent to Pyongyang in October were indeed sent on orders of the South Korean military — more specifically, on the orders of the former defense minister.
Before publicizing the contents of the document, Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Ki-heon claimed to have received information on how, only one week prior to the declaration of martial law, Kim had ordered Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairperson Adm. Kim Myung-soo to “fire warning shots before striking launch sites of North Korea’s trash-filled balloons” if any such balloons were seen floating in South Korean skies.
Kinda sounds like one of the military guys got cold feet or something.
Video of the Syrian Navy being completely destroyed in Port at Latakia, by the Israeli Air Force and Navy.
Oh shit, has The Adjuster got got?
"Many of them do not have permanent residency in Denmark. So of course we expect them to go home now." - This is the Nordic hermit kingdom's leader, the authoritarian Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen's comment on the situation for Syrian refugees.
The remarks fell during question time in the nation's rubber-stamp parliament when she was asked by fascist leader and convicted criminal Inger Støjberg. Frederiksen also remarked that she believes refugees will go home to reconstruct their country. "This is what I would do" she said.
The composition of syria's new government
I'm hearing that it's literally the same as the Idlib government they've been doing for years and it's supposed to stay in place until March 2025
"...not a single minister from an ethnic or religious minority, no women, and not even other opposition factions"
Trump Team Weighs Options, Including Airstrikes, to Stop Iran’s Nuclear Program
hell, why not, Israel has gotten literally everything else they've wanted
A significant portion of Russian industrial enterprises intend to slow down investments in production development in 2025 in the context of uncertainty of the current monetary policy, said Alexander Murychev, Vice President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
"In the real sector of the economy, in industry, the profit is also good [by the end of 2024] - more than 40 trillion rubles. But, nevertheless, they are reluctant to use this profit in the interests of investment development, taking into account quite understandable reasons: they do not have an understanding, clear forecasts, what will happen to the economy in six months, what will happen to the monetary policy in a year," Murychev said.
He clarified that industrialists are not yet interested in investing in medium-term projects, and even more so, in long-term ones.
"If we talk about the measurements that we take, they show that they [industrial enterprises] are ready - more than half of our large industrial enterprises are ready to continue their investment activities, but only after 2025, when there will be some certainty in monetary policy and resources will be more accessible," added the deputy head of the RSPP.
Slowing investment => no growth in output => acceleration of inflation.
The very high interest rates from the Central Bank finally did it in. Government subsidies since 2022 (actually since 2020 if you include Covid) that had been so successful in stimulating the economy have dried up. The libs have won.
Please stop recording your war crimes on social media
https://xcancel.com/ecomarxi/status/1867628344264516001From an intervew with Conservative Party leader today on The Spectator:
"Her Nigerian heritage often comes up in conversations about her straight-talking style. But she says this misses the point. ‘I find it interesting that everybody defines me as being Nigerian. I identify less with the country than with the specific ethnicity [Yoruba]. That’s what I really am. I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country, the Boko Haram where the Islamism is, those were our ethnic enemies and yet you end up being lumped in with those people.’"
South Korea’s parliament votes to impeach president over martial law debacle - CNN Asia
Seoul, South Korea, CNN — South Korea’s parliament voted to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday in an extraordinary rebuke that came about after his own ruling party turned on him following his refusal to resign over his short-lived martial law attempt.
It is the second time in less than a decade that a South Korean leader has faced impeachment proceedings in office and means Yoon is suspended from exercising his powers until the decision is finally adjudicated by the country’s Constitutional Court.
Following the vote, which sparked jubilation among protesters outside parliament, Yoon conceded that he will “stop temporarily for now, but the journey to the future that I’ve walked with the people for the past two years should not stop.”
“I will not give up,” he said in a statement shared by the country’s presidential office.
“With all the encouragement and support for me in mind, I will do my best until the last moment for the nation,” he added.
The country’s Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who will serve as acting president under South Korean law, told reporters that he would “devote all my strength and effort to stable operation of state affairs.”
One detail of the CEO killing I haven't seen discussed much: he was walking to the hotel where the company event was being hosted... from the different hotel he was staying in across the street.
If he just stayed in the same hotel as the event, this wouldn't have happened. What's the point in using two different hotels in the first place?
I wonder if companies will start making sure their executives stay in the same building as the events they're attending.
I'm slightly amazed they haven't managed to hold out even for a week to show:
(a) gulf monarchies and (mainly) turkey subservience
(b) working towards kurds (mainly sna, as turkey hand)
(c) absolutely no desire to say anything to entity
(d) terror against former government officials and/or minorities
*(e) eu disgustingly probing at opportunity to ship off refugees
yep, it's proxy vs proxy time, poor syrians
Some Syria news and analysis:
Brian Berletic’s analysis (this is very good): https://odysee.com/@Qwinten:b/Syria--A-Battle-Lost-Amid-a-Wider-War---The-New-Atlas:2
Iranian professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi’s analysis: https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/Marandi-syria-iran:6
President Bashar Assad resigned and left the country. He arrived safely in Moscow and received asylum (note that Western imperialist psychological warfare propagandists falsely claimed that he had died in a plane crash): https://www.rt.com/russia/609008-russia-assad-plane-crash/
The al-Queda and Turkish-backed groups agreed to provide security for Russian military bases and diplomatic missions: https://tass.com/world/1884231
HTS militants have broken into Hafez Al Assad's mausoleum in Qardaha, Latakia, and destroyed it. The whole place was looted and then set on fire, the graves of both Hafez al Assad and his son Bassel were completely destroyed.
Perfidious Albion boasts about successful testing of directed energy weapons for anti-drone warfare mounted on a Wolfhound (6 wheel vehicle).
I assume it uses a lot of juice. Probably still vulnerable to attack if the drone flies very low. Or if there are multiple drones it's probably fucked?
hows that new 'government' working out syria
oh my god the nazis are invading to ethnically cleanse you
Mexican President Sheinbaum Grants Legal Status to 68 Indigenous Peoples - Telesur English
Article
This Latin American country is home to approximately 23 million people who identify themselves as Indigenous. On Tuesday, President Claudia Sheinbaum signed a decree recognizing the rights of Mexico’s Indigenous peoples and establishing the Presidential Commission for Justice Plans for Indigenous and Afro-Mexican Peoples.
During the morning press conference at the National Palace, Sheinbaum emphasized the significance of the reform to Article 2 of the Constitution, which was approved in September under the presidency of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) and declares Mexico a “multiethnic nation.”
“Today, we will publish the reform in multiple languages, celebrating this International Human Rights Day,” she stated, referencing a law that recognizes 68 Indigenous groups as subjects of public law, granting them legal personality and their own patrimony. Additionally, the reform to Article 2 mandates consultations on projects that may impact the communities of the Indigenous peoples.
The constitutional reform was translated into over 50 indigenous languages thanks to the joint work of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), the University of Indigenous Languages of Mexico (ULIM) and the National Institute of Indigenous Languages (INALI), the outlet Quadratin reported.
Currently, Mexico is home to approximately 23 million people who identify themselves as Indigenous. Around 7.4 million of them speak a native language, with Nahuatl, Maya, Tzeltal, and Zapotec being the most common. The creation of the Presidential Commission aims to oversee justice plans for Indigenous peoples initiated during AMLO’s administration. To date, Mexico has implemented 17 justice plans benefiting 26 Indigenous peoples across 12 states, reaching approximately 420,000 people with a total investment of US$1.4 billion.
Al Arabiya's Washington correspondent Joseph Haboush is reporting that the USA has conducted airstrikes within Yemen tonight against Ansarallah (known as the Houthis in most western media). Details apparently will be released in the next few hours. While Al Arabiya is usually a trash source, if anyone is going to have info on US bombings, it would be those dogs of the US empire and Saudi Arabia.
Also more massacres have occurred in Gaza, with some very graphic footage currently spreading on social media, reports of 20-25 fatalities from a single bombing, genocided by Israel. Tonight has been terrible, with US-Israeli aggression across multiple countries.
Did not know that Damascus has so many different but similar names. For example, it's Dimashq in Arabic, Damask in Russian, Sham in Turkish, Damasko in Greek, Damishk in Hindi.
Such an old city, everyone knows it differently.
could be fake, but there's a link to the article in the thread. cool stuff.
Some Syria news for today.
At least 90,000 Syrian civilians, primarily religious minorities (from Homs, Hama, and Aleppo provinces), fled al-Queda “HTS” persecution to Lebanon: https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-minorities-flee-to-lebanon-in-fear-of-extremists
Yesterday, protests broke out in Damascus against al-Queda “HTS” leader Abu Muhammad al-Julani: https://news-pravda.com/world/2024/12/12/917352.html
The Zionist invaders attacked the southern Syrian settlements of al-Hurriya, Rasem al-Ruwadi, Ruwaihinah, and Umm Batna: https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/12/12/738970/Syria--Quneitra-Israel-Golan-Heights-
Something that we are about to see is the effective "demobilization" of the SAA and a "de-Ba'athification" of various armed formations. Despite the mix of frustration, incompetence and orders to stand down, the SAA still kinda exists while it's being transformed into something else, but I still wonder what is going to happen with it's remaining pro-Assad elements, because I'm sure as fuck there are still people right now in the defunct SAA that are very pissed off about this whole thing.
Of course we know Assad's government had various regular and irregular formations that were, on average, more loyal to them than the standard SAA units. Formations like "Tiger Forces" (which ended up being the only capable unit in the entire SAA it seems judging by the fact they were one of the fews that stood up for the past two weeks), Liwa al Quds (which I think still existed up until now? That is a somewhat irregular formation of syrian palestinians that once saw heavy action in Aleppo years ago) and the whole array of militias under the umbrella of the National Defense Forces, that during the earlier days of the war saw them fill in the roles of the regular SAA (back when they had a shitton of defections). Of course there is the Republican Guard as well, whose loyalty can come and go.
We know what happened in Iraq. A lot of former Republican Guard and Ba'ath soldiers and officials simply went underground when the US occupied the country and ransacked the country, some joined Ba'ath insurgents while others formed new Islamist formations. Others, of course, joined up with the US and formed the new Iraqi Army. The difference is that the Iraqi Army, and especially the Republican Guard, were relentlessly destroyed in battle while the SAA kinda wasn't, not to the same degree.
Of course these formations could create a broad Ba'ath insurgency of some kind or they could just dissolve into numerous factions with varying loyalties and ideologies if you will, effectively ending Ba'athism in Syria (whatever it's left of it anyways). It'll depend on Jolani's ability to summon them in a new government too, if he's willing to "pardon" them or he'll crack down on them, who knows. We'll see I guess.
There was another strike this morning against Russia proper with US-provided ATACMS missiles. This time in Taganrog in the Rostov region (nowhere near Kursk).
Russian MoD confirmed it and there are also casualties at the site struck.
The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Imam Ali Khamenei, will make an address regarding 'developments in the region' on Wednesday, December 11.
The Iranian Foreign Minister regarding the next step in Syria: 'We support a political solution in Syria based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, including: The immediate cessation of hostilities between all parties and a mechanism to monitor the ceasefire. The start of negotiations and a political process between all legitimate opposition parties in Syria, with the exception of recognized terrorist groups like HTS and ISIS. Free and fair national elections within 18 months and the right of the Syrian people to decide their own future.'
The last Iranian and Iranian-backed Shia fighters (mostly Fatemiyoun) will shortly leave Syria through the airport of Latakia, after making a last stand at Sayyeda Zainab Shrine, resisting for 4 hours against rebel forces despite being surrounded and outnumbered 11 to 1
Iranian FM Aragchi: Iran will continue support the resistance & Hezbollah. We’ve received guarantees in Syria that the embassy & consulate of Iran will be protected, and more importantly the shrines of Lady Sayyede Zainab & Hazrat Ruqyah will be protected & respected. The attack on the embassy this morning was not done by the actual groups but by bystanders for looting purposes. Iran’s position is to support the wishes of the Syrian people, but it is not easy to reach an agreement between all the different groups. The resistance may have setbacks or undergo changes, like losing dear figures in Lebanon for example, but resistance continues.
Daniel Penny has been acquitted of all charges in the
murdermanslaughtercriminally negligent homicideapparently totally fine death of Jordan Neely.Time is a flat circle
"The US Central Command said its forces conducted dozens of airstrikes on Islamic State targets in central Syria on Sunday
In a statement, the Centcom said its strikes were aimed to ensure that the Islamic State does not take advantage of the current situation in Syria.
“Battle damage assessments are underway, and there are no indications of civilian casualties,” reads a statement by Centcom posted on X.
“There should be no doubt – we will not allow Isis to reconstitute and take advantage of the current situation in Syria,” said Gen Michael Erik Kurilla.
“All organizations in Syria should know that we will hold them accountable if they partner with or support Isis in any way,” Kurilla added."
Materialist posting time. Poke holes in my likely flawed analysis please:
Kurds - just want to grill, but it’s thanksgiving so that means grilling turkey
Turkey - protector and defender of the Turkmen, hates the Kurds
Iran - can’t do shit about it now, will focus on Iraq & seek some kind of detente with the caliphate.
Iraq - will drive closer to Iran in fear of the caliphate
The Caliphate - won big but learned from last time and will probably seek to consolidate. Will want to focus on northern Iraq but will be reactive for a time until they consolidate their big gains. They have a grudge against Russia here but the cia has a bounty against their leader while also supplying arms so let’s face it, these players are businessmen and will cut a deal with Russia.
Shias / Alawites / seculars / remnant Ba’athists - lost big and will just try to survive, goal one will be an autonomous Latakia. An autonomous Latakia is directly in the interests of everyone except the caliphate since the caliphate immediately becomes a threat to everyone else, and not directly against the interests of the caliphate so I expect an autonomous Latakia that is essentially a Russian protectorate.
Lebanon (excluding Hezbollah): can’t do shit even for itself right now, will ally with Latakia & Russia and balance-of-power Israel against Hezbollah.
Hezbollah: will have to bend the knee and accept the caliphate as a neighbor, will loosely ally with Lebanon and Latakia.
Russia: will cut any deal possible that preserves their naval base, likely taking the form of a Syrian confederation that preserves an autonomous Latakia and they’ll wash their hands of the rest of the place. Interestingly well placed to balance Turkey against Israel, and play a broker between the caliphate and Iran. Most interesting takeaway here is that Lebanon is pushed towards Russia, and Turkey and Russia need to align their interests (= Kurds get fucked, as is tradition.)
Russia well positioned to be the closest thing to a power broker in this game of thrones imo. Despite having clearly taken a side, their side clearly lost, and their interests are clear and directly understood so bygones will be bygones.
Israel: can’t conceivably occupy a major Syrian population center if they can’t pacify Gaza. The more land they seize, the more likely the caliphate targets them instead of Iraq. I expect a restrained land grab to create a buffer zone, nothing more.
USA: fucking wild card. It’s certainly possible the caliphate don’t deal with Russia, which is a key assumption that negates everything so that is probably want the USA wants.
EU: irrelevant
Saudis will host world cup
Very nice, good thing i stopped watching football
the Villa of Maher Al Assad (Brother and basiclly the actual regime , he ordered the Security forces ) finally have the Supervillan vibes i was looking for.
checked what the osint guy I somewhat follow is posting..
- Israel bombed Syrian anti-air systems, planes, drones, tanks, radars, helicopters, plane hangars, etc, across the country. Their statement said they used 350 planes and had 320 targets.
- Israel sank the Syrian navy's 'Project 205' missile boats, leaving no active combat warships. They used Gabriel missiles fired from a Sa'ar 6-class German-made corvette (btw I see on natopedia it says the German government subsidized 1/3rd of the construction costs for these).
- Apparently several Syrian scientists have been assassinated, some working on missile, drone, and other military technology.
- All Syrian jails opened.
- There's a video taken from a Russian military vehicle showing a long line of unarmed Syrian soldiers walking toward the border with Iraq. Syrian infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, weapons, and uniforms have been left behind in the desert.
- Videos showing up of Jihadists killing people in Alawite villages. Also videos of Kurdish people getting killed and Kurdish women being abducted.
- The Turks are releasing videos of Bayraktar TB2 targeting Kurdish military vehicles. While the Russians were in Syria they had an agreement with Turkey to patrol and uphold a demarcation line which gave the Kurds security from Turkish attacks.
Bitcoin keeps going up.
Apparently because Trump wants an oil like strategic reserve for crypto. Public money being used directly to stabilize (and over time increase) price for such an useless commodity.
All of this implying that Bitcoin is kinda worthless without Dollars (and other fiat currencies) flowing into it.
Some more recent news from Syria.
This news summary states that ‘unknown gunmen’ (likely the re-organizing Tiger Forces) ambushed and killed several al-Queda “HTS” fighters in Jableh (a coastal city in Syria’s Latakia province). In addition, the summary also states that the Zionist invaders captured the southern Syrian settlements of Beit Jinn and Um Batina: https://southfront.press/military-situation-in-syria-on-december-15-2024-map-update/
The Zionist invaders are also, unsurprisingly, attempting to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population of the occupied southern Syrian settlements by cutting off power and water: https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/12/15/739099/Israel-water-power-Syria-Quneitra
Washington’s al-Queda “HTS” puppets will not allow Palestinian resistance movements to have weapons, training camps, or headquarters in Syria: https://thecradle.co/articles/hts-officials-order-palestinian-resistance-factions-to-disarm-close-bases-in-syria-report
ex-politician, crank, and transphobe spits in the faces of Arabs:
https://xcancel.com/georgegalloway/status/1867902358312681883Tesla Recommends Trump Administration to Loosen Crash Reporting Requirements
Reuters
Dec 13 (Reuters) - The Trump transition team wants the incoming administration to drop a car-crash reporting requirement opposed by Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA.O) , opens new tab , according to a document seen by Reuters, a move that could cripple the government’s ability to investigate and regulate the safety of vehicles with automated-driving systems. Musk, the world's richest person, spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump get elected president in November. Removing the crash-disclosure provision would particularly benefit Tesla, which has reported most of the crashes – more than 1,500 – to federal safety regulators under the program. Tesla has been targeted in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigations, including three stemming from the data. The recommendation to kill the crash-reporting rule came from a transition team tasked with producing a 100-day strategy for automotive policy. The group called the measure a mandate for "excessive" data collection, the document seen by Reuters shows. The Trump transition team, Musk and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. Reuters could not determine what role, if any, Musk may have played in crafting the transition-team recommendations or the likelihood that the administration would enact them. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing most major automakers except Tesla, has also criticized the requirement as burdensome. A Reuters analysis of the NHTSA crash data shows Tesla accounted for 40 out of 45 fatal crashes reported to NHTSA through Oct. 15. Among the Tesla crashes NHTSA investigated under the provision were a 2023 fatal accident in Virginia where a driver using the car's "Autopilot" feature slammed into a tractor-trailer and a California wreck the same year where an Autopiloted Tesla hit a firetruck, killing the driver and injuring four firefighters. NHTSA said in a statement that such data is crucial to evaluating the safety of emerging automated-driving technologies. Two former NHTSA employees said the crash-reporting requirements were pivotal to agency investigations into Tesla’s driver-assistance features that led to 2023 recalls. Without the data, they said, NHTSA cannot easily detect crash patterns that highlight safety problems. NHTSA said it has received and analyzed data on more than 2,700 crashes since the agency established the rule in 2021. The data has influenced 10 investigations into six companies, NHTSA said, as well as nine safety recalls involving four different companies. In one example, NHTSA fined Cruise, the self-driving startup owned by General Motors (GM.N) , opens new tab, $1.5 million in September for failing to report a 2023 incident in which a vehicle hit and dragged a pedestrian who had been struck by another car. GM said this week it would end robotaxi development at Cruise and fold it into its group working on driver-assistance technology. CRASH REPORTING NHTSA's so-called standing general order requires automakers to report crashes if advanced driver-assistance or autonomous-driving technologies were engaged within 30 seconds of impact, among other factors. In addition to ditching the reporting rule, the recommendations call for the administration to "liberalize" autonomous-vehicle regulation and to enact "basic regulations to enable development" of the industry. In an October Tesla earnings call, Musk called for “a federal approval process for autonomous vehicles,” rather than a patchwork of state laws he called “incredibly painful” to navigate. He said he would use his position as a government-efficiency czar, a post Trump had promised him, to push for such regulatory changes. After the election, Trump named Musk to co-lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency to advise from “outside government” on slashing federal staff, spending and regulations. MORE DATA, MORE CRASHES Tesla is among the most prominent automakers developing advanced driver-assistance features, which can assist with lane changes, driving speed and steering. Tesla’s Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” systems, which are not fully autonomous, have come under intense scrutiny in lawsuits and a DOJ criminal probe examining whether Tesla exaggerated its vehicles' self-driving capabilities, misleading investors and harming consumers. Tesla despises the crash-notification requirement, believing that NHTSA presents the data in ways that mislead consumers about the automaker's safety, two sources familiar with Tesla executives’ thinking told Reuters. In recent years, Tesla executives discussed with Musk the need to push for scrapping the crash-reporting requirement, according to one of the sources. But because Biden officials expressed enthusiasm for the program, Tesla executives ultimately concluded that they would need a change in administration to get rid of the requirements, according to the source. Tesla finds the rules unfair because it believes it reports better data than other automakers, which makes it look like Tesla is responsible for an outsized number of crashes involving advanced driver-assistance systems, one of the sources said. NHTSA cautions that the data should not be used to compare one automaker's safety to another because different companies collect information on crashes in different ways. Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who focuses on autonomous driving, said Tesla collects real-time crash data that other companies don’t and likely reports a "far greater proportion of their incidents” than other automakers. Tesla also likely has a greater frequency of crashes involving driver-assistance technologies because it has more vehicles on the road equipped with them and drivers engage the systems more often, Smith said. That means the vehicles may more often get into “situations that they aren’t capable of handling,” he said
From AryJeay on Telegram:
🇮🇷| Iranian FM Aragchi: Iran will continue support the resistance & Hezbollah
We’ve received guarantees in Syria that the embassy & consulate of Iran will be protected, and more importantly the shrines of Lady Sayyede Zainab & Hazrat Ruqyah will be protected & respected.
The attack on the embassy this morning was not done by the actual groups but by bystanders for looting purposes.
Iran’s position is to support the wishes of the Syrian people, but it is not easy to reach an agreement between all the different groups.
The resistance may have setbacks or undergo changes, like losing dear figures in Lebanon for example, but resistance continues.
@FotrosResistance
Looks like whatever happened in the embassy in Damascus, Iran isn't interested in making enemies with the new Syria and will seek to engage positively with whoever emerges as victor of the current clusterfuck.
Resistance against the entity will continue but it will be harder now for sure. I think there will need to be some humiliating peace deals signed right around Trump's time in office. If not there's a time limit now for how long Lebanon and Gaza can hold out.
"Or there will be hell to pay" - and it will be a hell Biden paved for him. Working hand-in-hand, never forget that.
The Revisionists have lusted for the Euphrates for 75 years, and the one opportunity they have Israel doesn’t have the troops or materiel to move on it.
Israeli tanks have exited Quneitra Governorate, and have now reached Western Damascus Governorate. It could just be to secure a 'buffer zone' in Syria as Israel says. But Israel has long considered entering Lebanon through Syria, bypassing Hezbollah's main defense lines.
Israel's initial stated goal was to 'temporarily take control over the UN-supervised zone' in the Syrian Golan Heights, including Quneitra. However, they have since then moved past the 1974 'Line Bravo', and entered the Western Damascus Countryside. Their exact motives are currently unknown.
HTS-affiliated media: 'Jolani wants relations with all regional countries, Iran cannot be ignored as a regional player, and we can't afford to have them as an open enemy, despite the evil they have done.'
Some lighter news, today the conservative leader of Queensland (in Australia) banned any discussion of abortion in Parliament or amendment to existing abortion laws
Abortion dominated debate in the October state election, with the Labor party claiming the LNP would restrict a woman's right to choose.
The subject threatened to derail the LNP's campaign, after Katter's Australian Party (KAP) pledged to introduce legislation to repeal Queensland's abortion laws after the election.
At the time, Premier David Crisafulli denied the laws would change, but wouldn't say how he would prevent that from happening.
Katter’s Australian Party MPs slammed the gag as unprecedented and a marker of the “death of democracy”.
The real manifesto??
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/luigis-manifesto
Seeing as this has the pull quotes in it, I am going to assume this is real, as in this is the manifesto the cops were talking about.
The post on Twitter also served me CAD ads under this lmao.
Just checking on /r/SyrianCirclejerkWar since forever, and damn, the memes there are savage. (CW: weirdo circlejerk shit on Reddit)
https://old.reddit.com/r/SyrianCirclejerkWar/comments/1h9or3f/syria_before_the_islamic_revolution/
And the blame game commences:
https://xcancel.com/iQMidEastCentre/status/1865927168745697644Assad shift in alliances during last year was kept a secret
With regards to the Russian Oreshnik IRBM (and conventional prompt strike weapons in general), and Putin's statements over the past few days and weeks about how these conventional weapons can do similar amount of damage as tactical nuclear weapons, the user @bbnh69420@hexbear.net asked a really good question: what kind of facilities would take a similar amount of damage from an Oreshnik strike as a tactical nuclear weapon?
My attempt to answer that question, with some analysis and satellite imagery. Click here to expand the spoiler tag.
My answer was an airbase, for the following reasons: Airbases are quite spread out hardened targets, with everything you want to strike spread out over kilometres, and usually protected by hardened shelters, in the case of forward airbases that are likely to be hit first. You can either do this with a lot of high precision weapons, or with a wide area of effect weapons, such as using cluster warheads/submunitions, or even a tactical nuclear weapon in a total war scenario.
The problem with a lot of submunition or cluster munition based weapons, is that the smaller conventional explosive munitions lack the power to seriously damage any hardened shelters, for aircraft, resources or personnel. That's fine if the airbase is relatively unprotected, but if it's full of hardened shelters, it poses a serious issue. But Oreshnik is unique in this regard: it is suspected to use kinetic submunitions that travel fast enough and with enough energy to penetrate these hardened shelters and cause damage to them. That's why I thought Oreshnik would be an ideal weapon to seriously damage forward airbases. It's a submunition weapon, without the drawbacks of typical submunition weapons.
To support my argument, we'll be using imagery and data from Iran's retaliatory strike on Nevatim Airbase during Operation True Promise II. We know that there were 33 observed impacts on the base. So what if, instead of each impact being from a single warhead, it was from a grouping of submunitions with a 175m radius for the grouping. 175m is the estimated damage radius of a Chinese DF-15 SRBM with a submunition warhead, so it's why I'm using that figure (also I'm lazy and some OSINT guy on twitter already did the math and imagery with that radius). 33 groupings would be the approximately the equivalent of six Oreshnik IRBMs, as each Oreshnik is estimated to carry 6 MIRVs, with six submunitions each. Six Oreshniks would give you 36 groupings, so three more than the Iranian strike. But close enough for this comparison. Now Iran did not use submunitions for the reason I described in the previous paragraph, but we know that reasoning does not apply to Oreshnik, so here we go:
As you can see, we go from singular impacts mostly missing key targets, to getting good coverage over key buildings on the base as a whole. Let's look at the potential hits in detail:
As for the aircraft shelters in the north west of the base, the strike has gone from hitting none of them, to hitting 9 aircraft shelters within the radius of the cluster strike. And those 9 shelters only required two groupings to take out. Now let's move on to the F-35 hardened shelters at the heart of the base:
Iran achieved one direct hit here with a couple of near misses. But now with a potential cluster munition strike, 19 of these hardened shelters are hit, along with a couple of other buildings. A huge difference. Now moving on to the aircraft hangars to the east:
Here Iran did manage a some good hits on these hangars, so the difference is not large. But there is full coverage over the hangars, and six large aircraft could have been destroyed if they were unable to get in the air before the strike.
So in conclusion, from the Iranian strike, to a potential Oreshnik strike with six Oreshniks on the same target, we've gone from a direct hit on 1 F-35 hardened aircraft shelter and a couple of hits on unprotected hangars to the east, to hitting 19 F-35 shelters, 9 other fighter jet shelters, 5 unprotected hangars (for 33 hangars/shelters total), and 6 large parked aircraft. And that's if Oreshnik has the same accuracy as Iranian MRBMs. If it has greater accuracy, the same damage could be done with less Oreshniks, or more damage with the same amount. If the Oreshnik was incredibly accurate and always hit it's mark (very unrealistic, but just for the sake of argument), only one Oreshnik would have been needed to take out those 33 hangars/hardened shelters, as only six groupings were required here. That's an incredible amount of damage from one conventional missile, to be able to take out 30+ fighter aircraft with one missile, while they are still on the ground. Even if multiple Oreshniks are required for such a strike (which is likely), it's still a massive amount of damage. This is what Putin means when he says it's equivalent to a tactical nuclear weapon. Taking out an entire airbase with half a dozen missiles, or even less if they are highly accurate.
So I've been busy with a lot and all the news about Luigi is a bit much to process, but was there not a twitter/blog post where he specifically mentions that his claim for back surgery was denied by UHC and that his mother suffered from a similar condition and was also denied? I just got home and my mom was watching the news and they didn't mention anything about this and they even angled towards painting it as him possibly being sexually frustrated or something like that due to his back condition or the operation. So I went and read a couple of other MSM sources and they're also just acting as it there's no clear motive inspite of everything he left online. I'm not completely sold on him being the guy, but they way the media is just doing all
about his social media seems a bit "weird". Or maybe not weird, but like they're intentionally deciding to omit the obvious. IDK. Maybe I'm just overthinking this.So some psycho on Al Jazeera called for mass beheadings and asked "why don't Shia go to the coast"
Question: What's your current appraisal of the "Axis of Resistance" against israel? Or, just the resistance against the Gaza genocide specifically.
The gut feeling I'm getting based on my mixed understanding is the whole thing is crumbling because Assad sucked too hard, and now Syria is ruined for the foreseeable future, thus cutting off hezbollah from weapons they rely on to meaningfully help Gaza resist the idf.
International Torture Watchdog: Danish Immigration Detention Facility "Resembles A Prison"
Denmark's infamous Ellebæk Immigration Detention Facility has come under fire from the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) for maintaining "prison-like conditions."
The center features barred windows, locked sections, and officers equipped with handcuffs and pepper spray. However, the residents are not criminals.
"Such conditions are unacceptable, as the foreign nationals detained at Ellebæk are neither suspected of crimes nor serving sentences," states a new CPT report.
Independent human rights organization Dignity agrees with the criticism.
"These are several points of concern that we believe Denmark should take seriously," said senior advisor Elna Søndergaard, urging Denmark's anti-refugee regime to change course.
Ellebæk houses refugees who have been denied asylum by the Nordic hermit kingdom's notoriously restrictive and racist asylum system and who the regime is unable to deport by force. The regime claims the refugees "refuse to return home" but many of them fear for their lives if they go back.
The Danish asylum system uses punitive measures such as so-called "detention to encourage compliance", prison-like confinement intended to make life so unbearable for refugees that they would rather return home to an uncertain fate than stay.
- Source: DR (state media), December 12th 2024
Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigrade speak out against the PA.
Via telegram Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade - Youth of Revenge and Liberation:
— In the Name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful
To those who believe they can triumph over their own people by clinging to the disgraceful policies of security coordination and seeking refuge in their zionist allies:
O brave masses of our steadfast Palestinian people, You who defend the dignity and freedom of your homeland, standing with your bare chests against the policies of the Nazi-zionist government that conspires against you, uproots you from your land, and desecrates your holy sites and sanctities in broad daylight...
Today, as our people and resistance stand in the midst of a sacred battle to defend the rights of our nation, the Security Forces of the Palestinian Authority persists in compensating for its failures by becoming an active accomplice in the assault against our people. This is manifested through relentless pursuit, arbitrary arrests, defamation campaigns, bribery, and the spreading sedition aimed at dismantling the resistance.
The latest shocking example of this is the cold-blooded killing of an innocent citizen, Rebhi Al-Shalabi, from Jenin, as witnessed in the circulated video showing how PA Security Forces executed him in cold blood, mimicking the actions of the criminal enemy soldiers against our people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Today, we do not ask you to be partners in defending our people; we simply demand that you stop interfering with our resistance.
We call on the wise and honorable among our people to rein in these Security Forces that have left no room for reconciliation or understanding. Despite enduring many transgressions and provocations, and swallowing our anger to preserve our higher national interests, their actions have now crossed all revolutionary and national red lines.
We demand that our people take to the streets in marches condemning these oppressive and immoral policies.
And Allah is the ultimate Judge of intentions. Revolution until victory.
Your brothers, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades
Syrian "rebels" fighting in Sudan with the RSF:
https://x.com/MohanadElbalal/status/1866529632587034857
https://xcancel.com/MohanadElbalal/status/1866529632587034857
I just discovered that Jurrasic Park and In The Mouth of Madness Actor, Sam Neill, has cancer and while currently is in remission, it could return. I know he is a lib/socdem, I also think he is pro-Aboriginal and Maori.
In March 2023, Neill revealed that he had been undergoing chemotherapy since March 2022 after being diagnosed with stage 3 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, following swollen glands that were first noticed during publicity for Jurassic World Dominion. He stated that the cancer is in remission, but he will require monthly chemotherapy for the rest of his life.
Is there any indication yet on how far Israel intends to push this? I think if they attempt to occupy Damascus it would be a real grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory moment.
So many things have happened that are good tidings for the levant apartheid state but their problem is they’re out of control maniacs that literally don’t seem to be able to stop and seek stability. My hope is this will be their own undoing.
It seems like most embassies in Syria were evacuated with help from UN soldiers.
UK Royal Air Force refueling aircraft of type KC3 Voyager/Airbus A330 MRTT in the air over the Southern border of Syria, in Jordanian and Iraqi airspace, flew out from Cyprus. It looks like the British might use the current situation to bomb some ISIS or ex SAA targets in Syria. No confirmation on that yet, all that Is known is that the tanker aircraft is in the air.
Update: the tanker aircraft is accompanied by at least two Eurofighter Typhoon fighter aircraft. These are the aircraft that would actually carry out any potential airstrikes. They are currently returning to Cyprus.
Israeli aircraft and artillery are also shelling Daraa according the the latest videos and images from the region. A weapons cache in Izra appears to be the target, with lots of secondary explosions visible, and rocket artillery rounds cooking off and firing into the night sky.
Looks as if it's going to be a very rough night and early morning in terms of air raids. Anyone living near any SAA military installations, I'd advise to stay away from windows and inside, these are going to be bombed.
PYM statement on Syria:
many are saying this
It just occured to me that even if the Ukraine war ends with favorable conditions for NATO, Liberals can no longer be smug about it because it would mean handing Trump a win.
Documentary on Israeli Occupation Crimes is Up for an Oscar - Telesur English
Article
‘No Other Land’ was co-directed by Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yuval Abraham. Five years of recording Israeli aggression and occupation in a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank form the foundation of a multi-award-winning documentary that is now looking to the Oscars. Its creators hope international recognition can help push for change in Palestine.
Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yuval Abraham are the directors of No Other Land, a story that chronicles the impunity of Israeli military crimes against Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta, located south of Hebron. The film depicts bulldozers demolishing schools and homes, settlers cutting water pipelines, and soldiers threatening and shooting at those defending their land.
This community began documenting Israeli aggression more than twenty years ago, back when Adra was just a child. As he took on the role behind the camera, the documentation became more consistent, with a clearer intent to expose the reality in real-time. “Back then, I had a lot of faith in the work we were doing—documenting and publishing—and I believed that once it went viral, things would change. That people would act, that governments wouldn’t stay silent,” Adra recalls.
However, over time, global inaction has eroded Adra’s hope and enthusiasm. He is now convinced that “the West does not want the genocide in Gaza or the occupation in the West Bank to end.” “Social media is full of videos of Israeli soldiers filming themselves committing crimes. No one is doing anything, no one pays the price for these crimes, there are no consequences,” he states.
“I’ll be honest: it’s very hard to find hope. We’re living through very dark times,” the Palestinian summarizes, though he remains convinced that “there are many things that could be done to stop this, to force a ceasefire, and to end the occupation.”
The lack of international response and the resulting despair have not stopped them from documenting and exposing the situation. “It’s very hard to simply decide to stop,” Adra says, aware of the importance of standing by his community and recognizing that it might be the only contribution people like him, who lack “real power,” can make to try to change things. “If change happens, it won’t be because of a film or a single person. It will come from a collective effort,” Abraham admits. “That’s why we keep fighting—because we believe that one day we will see change. And I hope I live to see it,” he adds.
However, both directors acknowledge that real change requires a shift in Western foreign policy. “Unfortunately, the people who have power are not willing to use it to stop what is happening,” Adra laments. “If there isn’t a significant shift in Europe’s and the United States’ foreign policy, there won’t be any internal change in Israel,” Abraham concludes.
“There’s no interest in finding a solution,” the Palestinian continues, arguing that “there are steps that could be taken, such as recognizing the Palestinian state.” Spain and other European countries recently made this recognition—a small but potentially meaningful step if followed by others. Abraham suggests additional measures, such as sanctioning settlements, something that would create real pressure. “If [Israelis] don’t pay a price for continuing the occupation, the likelihood of change is low,” he asserts.
No Other Land, recently awarded Best Documentary at the European Film Awards and a winner at the 74th Berlinale, is a film that does not shy away from activism, addressing a reality it describes as “so unjust and asymmetrical.” “The main reason for making this film was to shed light on this community, and I think the recognition the film is receiving is a way to give the community the platform it truly deserves,” Abraham notes.
The documentary is among the frontrunners for an Oscar nomination and is a strong contender for the coveted award. Such recognition would allow the directors to achieve another goal: reaching the widest possible audience and exerting international pressure. “I hope that by watching No Other Land, there will be some kind of push, some kind of energy in the world that eventually leads to change and international pressure,” expresses the Israeli director.
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/the-roads-to-damascus
seems like tariq also suspects betrayal of the army elites. Then they are truly dumb as rocks, i don't have other words for it.
The person of interest has been ID'd as a Luigi Mangione (sorry for non-archive link, follow at your own discretion).
https://abcnews.go.com/US/unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooting-latest-net-closing-suspect-new/storyUpdate: Lula wakes up and is conscious after surgery Lula was taken to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) after surgery and, according to sources close to him, has been alternating moments of sleep and wakefulness.
Lula will be hospitalized for 'a few days' after surgery, says Paulo Pimenta. “The president is hospitalized, he will remain hospitalized for a few more days, but he is absolutely stable, under control,” said the minister.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be hospitalized for “a few more days” at the Sírio-Libanês Hospital, where he underwent surgery in the early hours of Tuesday morning to drain a hematoma on his skull, said Paulo Pimenta, minister of the Presidency's Social Communication Secretariat, in a video published on his Instagram account. “The procedure went absolutely normally, according to plan. The president is hospitalized, will remain hospitalized for a few more days, but is absolutely stable, under control,” said Pimenta in the video.
Vice-President Geraldo Alckmin takes over the presidency temporarily and receives the Prime Minister of Slovakia and fulfills government commitments during Lula's recovery. Alckmin was assigned to fulfill official commitments that had already been scheduled, including a reception for the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico. The meeting was scheduled to take place this Tuesday in Brasilia.
In addition, Alckmin had a series of appointments in São Paulo, where he was already scheduled to attend the Apex Brasil Awards ceremony on Monday night. He was also due to take part in investment announcements at Latam's maintenance shed in São Carlos, scheduled for Tuesday morning.
The doctors said that the risk is zero, and that even though this type of bleeding is rare, it's not uncommon. Lula is due to return to work next week. He has already had lunch and talked to his family.
Luigi Mangione, 26, from Baltimore County, Maryland, was apparently apprehended at a Pennsylvania McDonalds on Monday. Mangione went to Gilman, a private all-boys Catholic high school in Baltimore, and then studied at University of Pennsylvania, where he acquired a master of science in engineering degree and a bachelor of science in engineering degree in computer science.
Luigi Mangione’s cover photo featuring a Pokemon, an X-ray photo of his back with four spikes in the pelvis area, and a photo of him shirtless in the mountains His X account is rife with mostly right-leaning, slightly nihilistic, tech bro-y takes concerning AI, mental health, altruism, ancient history, and society in general. Mangione follows Ezra Klein, Sam Altman, AOC, Edward Snowden, and Robert F. Kennedy, among others.
lol
In April, he posted that “modern Japanese urban environment is an evolutionary mismatch for the human animal. The solution to falling birthdates isn’t immigration. It’s cultural.” He reshared another video from June of Republican megadonor Peter Thiel talking about people with Asperger’s running start-ups. He reposted a pseudo-motivational quote, “Netflix, door dash, and true crime podcasts have stolen more dreams than failure ever will.” And he reposted several messages railing against “wokeism.”
Luigi Mangione reposted: Gurwinder: Wokeism needs racism to exist, so it's always looking to pathologize new things as racist, including, now, attempts to start conversation by asking where you're from. If wokeism teaches minorities to be traumatized even by friendly gestures, it cannot claim to bridge divides. Screenshot of Uju Anya: No matter how sweetly you ask it, "Where are you from?" is not a polite question.
His Goodreads is also of interest. He reviewed the Unabomber’s book, writing that “when all other forms of communication fail, violence is necessary to survive. You may not like his methods, but to see things from his perspective, it’s not terrorism, it’s war and revolution. Fossil fuel companies actively suppress anything that stands in their way and within a generation or two, it will begin costing human lives by greater and greater magnitudes until the earth is just a flaming ball orbiting third from the sun.”
Mangione was also allegedly found with a written manifesto criticizing health care companies and weapons similar to the CEO shooter’s. He has yet to be charged.
Bummer plot twist, could do with a bit more originality, same ole' "The Swerve" storyline from the writers once again ngl but phew. Every time a new headline dropped, his basedness went up like 10 notches, and I felt like I was starting to question my sexuality again. But now that he might be a reactionary goober, balance has been restored to the world. The hero flew a little too close to the chud sun, but the idea’s still there for me to hyperfixate on—and honestly, ideas can be so gay.
Israel’s Kann is reporting that the IDF is considering carrying out a significant attack on Yemen focusing on the Houthis
This is making the rounds on twitter but I can't find it at KANN. Ansar Allah will be USA's Hanukkah gift to Isn'trael.
One obvious part of the Syrian government's collapse, to anyone with half a brain, is that it was not domestic rebels doing it on their own. An organization chased out of 95% of the country does not just suddenly overthrow the state without weapons and troops and intel from at least one larger country and regional or great power.
A slightly less obvious takeaway is that, contrary to the perennial allegations that "they slaughtered their own people and wrecked their country", all the constituents of the dominant alliance decided that it was not worth it to make the civil war drag on*. Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, and finally the SAA itself all decided that rather than destroying more land and lives, it was more worthwhile to cut losses and retreat. It really doesn't fit the picture if "brutal dictator and his foreign allies" to have chosen to turn over the country rather than to sacrifice more of it.
*Or at least, not this iteration of the civil war. No one can say what the next 5-10 years will look like.
There are some claims that Shevchenko (a town south of Pokrovsk) was intended to be a Ukrainian defensive stronghold, with heavy fortifications manned by "elite" French-trained troops (supposedly still conscripts, though).
According to conflicting reports from Ukrainian sources, the positions were left empty by command, the fortifications were destroyed, or the troops deserted. Anyway, the town fell within just a few days, providing a springboard for Russian DRGs to (allegedly) enter the outskirts of Pokrovsk.
Police Raid South Korean President’s Office Amid Martial Law Investigation - Telesur English
Article
This impasse lasted for more than three hours, reflecting not only the tension between institutions but also the complexity of the current political context.
On Wednesday, the South Korean police were engaged in a prolonged confrontation with agents of the Presidential Security Service while attempting to carry out a raid on the president’s office. This action is part of a broader investigation into Yoon’s recent declaration of martial law, which was revoked by the National Assembly within hours of its implementation.
According to reports from the Yonhap news agency, police officers attempted to access the presidential office at 11:50 local time but encountered strong resistance from security personnel, who argued that access should be prevented for security reasons. This impasse lasted for more than three hours, reflecting not only the tension between institutions but also the complexity of the current political context.
The investigation against Yoon Suk-yeol includes serious allegations, including insurrection, which adds a critical dimension to the situation. The declaration of martial law, although brief, has generated intense debate about the use of executive power and civil liberties in the country. Early in the morning, police conducted raids on several agencies, including the National Police Agency and the Seoul Metropolitan Police.
This suggests that authorities are looking to establish a wider network of accountability and transparency around the president’s decisions. This episode highlights the inherent tensions in the South Korean political system, where institutions must balance national security with accountability.
Israeli airstrikes and or special forces raids on the underground missile base bunkers built by Assad/Iran/Hezbollah into the Qalamoun mountains are continuing tonight, with reports of between 24-60 strikes within the past few hours. This is the second or third night of Israel attempting to destroy these facilities specifically and the ballistic missiles housed within them, they must be built pretty deep into the mountains if this many operations are needed to continue their destruction.
Some news and combat footage for today from Russia’s special military operation.
Russian forces reached the city center of the Donetsk People’s Republic city of Kurakhovo and raised the national flag: https://southfront.press/russian-flag-waving-in-center-of-kurakhovo/
Anti-fascist partisans conducted an IED strike killing a Kiev regime military conscription officer in Dnepropetrovsk (18+ video): https://southfront.press/ukrainian-mobilisation-officers-fell-victims-of-ied-attack-in-dnipro/
Russian air defenses shot down a Kiev regime Su-25 (plus other news and combat footage, some 18+): https://southfront.press/no-good-news-for-kyiv-kurakhovo-is-on-brink-of-collapse-and-even-more/
General Braga Netto, Bolsonaro’s former VP running mate, was arrested by Brazil’s Federal Police.
Accused of obstruction of justice, he pressured whistleblower Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s aide, for privileged testimony details. He’s the 1st four-star general ever arrested in Brazil’s history. The charges include criminal conspiracy, attempting to overthrow democratic rule, and threatening a constituted authority.
If found guilty, Braga Netto could face up to 33 years in prison. He’s currently detained at the Eastern Military Command headquarters, where he once held a senior post. In a historical twist, the first arrest of a four-star general in Brazil coincides with the birthday of Dilma Rousseff, former guerrilla fighter, former President of Brazil, current President of the BRICS Bank, and a survivor of the 1964 Military Dictatorship.
Record Numbers Seek Christmas Aid Amid Growing Inequality
In 2024, private humanitarian organizations in Denmark report unprecedented demand for Christmas assistance, as rising poverty contrasts sharply with soaring wealth among the richest families. Over 20,000 families applied to the organisation Dansk Folkehjælp, an 18% increase since 2022, while the Salvation Army received over 19,000 applications—double the number from 2020. The organisations Blue Cross and Mothers' Aid also reported record-breaking demand, with over 25,000 families seeking help this year.
Rising food prices, up 22% since inflation peaked a few years ago, have left many unable to afford holiday essentials. Aid typically includes gift cards worth DKK 600–1,000 (USD 85-140), a modest lifeline for struggling families in the Nordic hermit kingdom that has one of these world's highest costs of living.
Meanwhile, Denmark’s 100 wealthiest families grew their collective fortunes by over DKK 100 billion (USD 14 bln.) in 2024, adding an average of DKK 2.7 million (USD 38,000) daily per family, underscoring the widening gap between the country’s richest and its most vulnerable during the holiday season.
- Source: Arbejderen, December 13th 2024
Syrian rebel compares Assad's compound to the game Half-Life
This has been a hell of a week huh"Uncomfortable, Awkward and Intimidating.": Prospective Citizens Grilled in Demeaning Danish "Mindset Interviews"
Today, three applicants for Danish citizenship faced the naturalization committee of the Nordic hermit kingdom's rubber-stamp parliament for unprecedented "mindset interviews". The process, designed to evaluate adherence to "Danish values" and gauge the "democratic mindset" of applicants marks a controversial new chapter in Denmark's citizenship procedures.
Read more
Anonymous Snitching Snubs Hopes Of Citizenship
The two men and one woman, who had already fulfilled Denmark's exhaustive naturalization requirements, were subjected to this grilling following anonymous complaints about their Facebook activity. The complaints triggered a freeze on their applications, despite the applicants meeting a laundry list of requirements that includes everything from employment, a clean criminal record and having no outstanding public debts to passing a language exam and a trivia quiz, signing a declaration of loyalty and physically shaking the hand of the local mayor or similar official (skin contact explicitly required).
Their hopes of citizenship now rest on a vote by the naturalization committee, which has the power to reject or approve their applications. One applicant is reported to have used a picture of Saddam Hussein as his profile picture. Another posted a homophobic comment urging parliament to "do something about your homosexuality instead" in response to parliament passing an islamophobic "Burqa ban". While such expressions are ostensibly protected under Denmark’s constitution, they have now become grounds for informal inquisitions into applicants' "democratic mindset".
The interviews happened behind closed doors but some questions from anonymous committee members have been reported. Questions included:
- Should homosexuals be allowed to hold hands and kiss in public?
- What would you say if your child dated someone who wasn’t Muslim?
- Which value do you think is the most important in a democracy?
Peder Hvelplund, member of the committee for the pro-democracy "Red-Green" opposition party did not ask any questions. Instead he spent his talking time apologizing to applicants that they had to be "dragged through such an undignified process".
The committee's vice-chair, Helene Brydensholt from the green "Alternative" party had resigned in protest and was not present.
Being targeted as props for right-wing culture war theatrics is likely to have devastating consequences for the applicants' prospects of gaining citizenship and having their legal and political rights safeguarded. All three were visibly nervous and emotional before appearing before the committee. The woman applicant left the hearing in visible distress, rushing past reporters in tears.
Pro-democracy Opposition: "Uncomfortable, Awkward and Intimidating"
The racist majority of the committee had a positive assessment of the interrogations with chairman of the committee, Islamophobic firebrand Mikkel Bjørn from the fascist Danish People's Party called the interviews "a really good conversation and a really good dialogue". The pro-democratic opposition had a different view of the interviews with Hvelplund describing them as "the most uncomfortable, awkward and intimidating experience" in his time in politics.
The interrogations are a long-time wet dream of the racist right and are the pet project of Mikkel Bjørn whose racist views are well-documented. Bjørn has stated an explicit and borderline genocidal desire to reduce the Muslim population of Denmark, remove the legal status of all Muslim faith communities and "make islamic life in Denmark close to impossible".
The efforts of Bjørn and the "Danish People's Party" has been seconded by the ruling "Social Democrats" whose already reactionary politics has taken a significant authoritarian turn over recent years. Social Democrat committee member Anders Kronborg has described the intimidating interviews as "a grand gesture" towards applicants who are "invited to the stronghold of democracy" to tell "why they have these views and find them reconcilable with having a Danish passport".
Expect The Danish Inquisition: Libertarians Demands "Systematic Screenings" Of All Applicants
The interviews are not the only measure taken by Denmark's Islamophobic political elite to police the speech of the kingdom's Muslim minority. The far-right libertarian "Liberal Alliance" party has demanded that the regime forms an expert group to develop even more intrusive mechanisms to "systematically screen" the "democratic mindset" of all who apply for citizenship.
The interviews happens as the latest development in over three decades of rightward shift in Danish politics that has made islamophobic and racist opinions the new "political correctness" among the media and ruling elite. Especially the "Social Democrats", who once had roots in the labour movement, have moved so far right as to be virtually indistinguishable from the fascist Danish People's Party.
A Process Mired In Chaos
The interviews are happening in a legal grey zone under chaotic and arbitrary procedures. Leading up to today's interrogations legal scholars and civil servants had voiced concerns about the legality of the interrogations under national and international human rights law. This did not move the committee's majority who decided to push forward with the interviews.
In Denmark's peculiar naturalization process that dates back to the 1800's citizenship is granted through a legislative process rather than an administrative one. In practice this leaves applicants at the mercy of political whim, stripped of many of the legal protections against arbitrary, biased and lazy decisions that normally apply in administrative law. The sheer amount of applicants and paperwork means that the MP's on the committee often vote on applications they have never read and their decisions are reported to depend on the individual moods of MP's on the day of the vote rather than on serious casework.
Today was no different and up to the last moments the procedural rules of the interrogations were unclear. In the letter summoning them to appear before the committee applicants had been told to come alone. However, one applicant had asked in advance whether they could bring a council. After some debate and confusion the request was granted. When appearing the council asked whether they were allowed to record the proceedings. This caused some debate in the committee before proceedings could go ahead. It is unknown whether the council was allowed to record the interrogation or not.
The three applicants will know whether they've passed through the needle's eye on December 19th when the naturalization bill is introduced to parliament. The Danish People's Party has already announced that they will vote against the naturalization of two of the applicants.
Denying citizenship on arbitrary grounds contravenes international human rights law. However, courts lack the authority to grant citizenship to those unfairly denied, leaving compensation as the only recourse for victims of this deeply flawed process.
- Source: DR (state media), December 9th 2024
Normally I don't post pictures but this is Mikkel Bjørn looking like he has just discovered Anne Frank's hiding place:
CW: Nazi with shit-eating grin
Ecuador Announces 15-Day Industrial Power Outage Despite Earlier Promises - Telesur English
Article
Despite recent government announcements declaring an end to nationwide power cuts, the Ecuadorian government has announced a new 15-day industrial power outage, scheduled from December 15th to 30th. The move is expected to significantly impact seven major industries and cause substantial economic losses.
Energy and Mines Minister Inés Manzano confirmed the outage, specifying that it will affect four companies in the high-voltage group AV4 – two mining companies and two steel mills directly connected to transmission lines – along with three cement companies in the AV1 group. Other industries will continue to experience the rotating power cuts they have already faced. Minister Manzano stated that these affected companies represent approximately 5% of the national energy demand.
Francisco Jarrín, president of the Guayaquil Chamber of Industries, emphasized the broader impact of the outage, stating that “the effect is felt throughout the entire production chain that receives or demands products from these companies; they are not isolated. It should not be seen as an impact only on a few companies.”
The impact on employment and the economy is significant. María Paz Jervis, president of the Ecuadorian Business Committee, estimates that 5,500 workers will be affected by the complete shutdown of AV1 and AV2 industrial groups. She projected potential economic losses of around $100 million.
This announcement comes after the industrial sector already experienced a 3% decline due to previous power cuts. The conflicting messaging from the government regarding power stability has raised serious concerns among industrial leaders and the wider business community. The timing of the outage, just before the end of the year, further exacerbates the negative economic consequences.
Meanwhile Nepobaby failson how literally uses slave labor, Daniel Noboa, is partying in some Yacht with his wife.
Lula undergoes procedure to prevent new bleeding in the head and is now awake, says doctor
Lula underwent emergency surgery on Tuesday to drain a hematoma on his head and has now undergone embolization. According to the doctors, he will not suffer any sequelae. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva underwent a medical procedure on Thursday morning (12) to prevent further bleeding in his head.
“The procedure has just finished, it was successful, [we] managed to embolize that artery. (...) The president is awake and talking,” said doctor Roberto Kalil after the procedure, which began at around 7:10 am and lasted less than an hour. At 10am, the medical team will give an interview to the press.
The technique is not considered a surgery, but an “endovascular procedure (embolization of the middle meningeal artery)” and will not influence his expected discharge from the ICU, which should be this Thursday. The intervention is part of the post-surgical protocol. The 79-year-old PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores - Workers' Party) leader underwent emergency surgery in the early hours of Tuesday to drain a hematoma on his head - still as a result of the fall he suffered in his bathroom in October.
Georgian Parliament Elects Pro-Russian Mijail Kavelashvili as President - Telesur English
Article
He replaces pro-European opposition leader Salome Zurabishvili, who refuses to vacate her position. On Saturday, the Central Election Commission announced that Mijail Kavelashvili, of the ruling Georgian Dream party, was elected president of the country during a parliamentary vote boycotted by the opposition.
Kavelashvili, who received the support of 224 out of 300 national and municipal deputies convened for the vote, replaces pro-European opposition leader Salome Zurabishvili. Zurabishvili refuses to vacate her position, claiming that the legislature resulting from the October parliamentary elections lacks legitimacy.
As the sole candidate in the election, Kavelashvili becomes the sixth president in the country’s history since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. A former ruling party deputy since 2016, he also had a distinguished soccer career, including playing for Manchester City. Born in 1971, Kavelashvili is the founder of The Strength of the People, a movement that promoted laws against foreign influence and sexual minorities, which were criticized by the opposition for their similarity to regulations enacted in Russia.
The opposition, which has been holding daily protests in Tbilisi since the government froze negotiations to join the European Union on Nov. 28, gathered early in the morning outside the Parliament building.
“Slaves” and “Russians” were some of the slogans chanted by activists, who consider it an “insult” that the new head of state lacks higher education. To prevent incidents, police have closed off nearby streets used by lawmakers to access the legislature and have deployed water cannon trucks in the area.
The authorities altered the presidential election mechanism for this vote. For the first time, the president was not chosen by universal suffrage but through a collegiate vote involving 150 parliamentary deputies and 150 municipal delegates. In addition to the parliamentary deputies—89 of whom belong to Georgian Dream—the electorate included 21 deputies from the Parliament of the Autonomous Region of Adjara, 20 representatives from the Supreme Council of Abkhazia in exile, and 109 municipal delegates.
Last night, Zurabishvili, president since 2018, reiterated that she would not relinquish the presidency. She called the election a “constitutional farce” and urged continued protests. According to the opposition leader, who deems Georgian Dream’s victory in the October legislative elections fraudulent, the country currently lacks a legitimate Parliament, and “an illegitimate Parliament cannot elect a new president.”
Honduras: Authorities Reports Historic Drop in Homicide Rate - Telesur English
Article
Honduran President Xiomara Castro celebrated a historic decrease in the country’s homicide rate on Friday, attributing the decline to her government’s comprehensive crime-fighting strategies. The announcement came during a ceremony honoring police officers for their contributions to national security.
“My government and the National Council of Defense and Security approved the National Plan for Crime Solution, and today I want to congratulate the Minister of Security and the National Police for achieving a historic decrease in homicide rates in Honduras,” President Castro stated.
The president’s comments followed a ceremony promoting 254 police officers and recognizing others for their achievements in combating crime. She praised the National Police and Armed Forces for delivering “decisive blows” against drug trafficking, highlighting significant seizures of narcotics and the destruction of drug plantations and labs. This, she claimed, represents a substantial improvement over the previous administration’s handling of the issue.
Security Minister Héctor Gustavo Sánchez echoed the president’s sentiments, emphasizing progress in combating organized crime, gangs (maras), and drug trafficking. He reported that Honduras is on track to end the year with the lowest homicide rate in two decades, representing a reduction of nearly eight points in the homicide rate.
He further noted that 65 of the country’s 298 municipalities (22%) have reported no violent incidents. Minister Sánchez also highlighted a 46% decrease in femicides, attributed to a comprehensive prevention and control strategy. He cited impressive figures including over 26 tons of cocaine seized, more than 11 million coca plants destroyed, and over 15,000 firearms removed from circulation.
These figures align with data released earlier this week by the Violence Observatory of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). The Observatory projects a homicide rate of 27 per 100,000 inhabitants for 2024, a significant drop from 34.5 in 2023. They also anticipate a femicide rate of 4.8 per 100,000 women, a 3.8-point decrease from the previous year. The significant reductions in both homicide and femicide rates represent a major success for the Castro administration’s security initiatives.
Funny moment after the cancellation of the first round of presidential elections in Romania
Elena Lasconi,who was supposed to run against Georgescu publicly humiliating herself on Twitter dot com, begging at Trumps feet
I would like to show you a very interesting figure in the whole Calin Georgescu debacle, a certain Horatiu Potra
Former member of the French Foreign Legion, and chief of the Central African Republic's president's corp of bodyguards, now PMC founder, recently active in the DRC, fighting against the Kinshasa government was recently "arrested" because of his connections with Georgescu. He was "caught" heading to Bucharest with a convoy of cars carrying firearms,machetes and a drone,among other things supposedly in order to start violent protests or intimidate journalists and public figures to stop covering Georgescu in a bad light.
I put those quotes there because his "arrest" was probably only for show,he wasn't even handcuffed when they took him,and just today he was released from judicial review. The pro Georgescu faction, most likely SIE (external intelligence) warned him ahead of time and are gonna get him off the hook. SRI (internal intelligence) is the pro-West faction from what I heard from my friends who have some inside sources,but this could be inacurate,so take this with a grain of salt.
Very interesting figure,has ties to Wagner,I call him both the Romanian Prigozhin and the Romanian Mike Ehrmenntraut,and you'll see why when you look at a photo of him.
can almost feel the movement of erdie and economy hand
*Obviously pisrael supports kurds, to misdirect any military action from them. I also feel erdie is moving too fast, trump doesn't care about kurds, biden might
https://v.redd.it/hmi7zk4nm16e1 has this been posted yet? a tiktok by a friend of the adjuster, desc;
Luigi Mangione is probably the most google keyword today. But before all of this, for a while, it was also the only name whose facetime calls I would pick up. He was one of my absolute best, closest, most trusted friends. He was also the only person who, at 1am on a work day, in this video, agreed to go to the store with drunk me, to look for mochi ice cream.
A pretty hopeless post by Yves on NakedCapitalism
Jeffrey Sachs is about as liberal and otherwise problematic as Mearsheimer, but this seems like a pretty good analysis in terms of the geopolitics. (The motivational shit is pretty stupid, though, like thinking that between the U.S. and Israel it is Israel that calls the shots, and not giving the most zealous Zionist over the last 50 years of U.S. politics his due.)
Interesting thread on Salafism with respect to Islamic jurisprudence:
https://xcancel.com/revdefeated/status/1866019539672297609Photo circulating online claiming to be of Bashar Assad & family in Moscow is old from their visit in 2023.
I guess we won't be able see Assad for some time now? Unless the situation in Syria changes to his favor.
This is what bipartisanship is all about
The real question is what exactly this guys Waluigi has been up to this entire time?
Trump to Pardon MAGA Rioters Once in Office - Telesur English
Article
At least 1,572 individuals have been charged in connection with the 2021 Capitol attack. On Sunday, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said that he will pardon his supporters involved in the 2021 Capitol attack starting on his first day in office.
In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Trump described those incarcerated as “living in hell,” arguing that they have been put through a “very nasty system.” “I’m going to be acting very quickly. First day,” Trump said, warning that some members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack “should go to jail.” After the 2020 U.S. presidential election, then-President Trump refused to concede to his opponent Joe Biden and claimed that there was widespread election fraud.
On Jan. 6, 2021, thousands of Trump supporters broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certifying process of the 2020 presidential election, prompting hundreds of lawmakers to evacuate in panic. The deadly attack, which led to five deaths and hundreds of police officers injured, is a “landmark stain” on American democracy, according to a CNN report published in June 2021.
At least 1,572 individuals have been charged in connection with the attack, and over 1,251 have either been convicted or pleaded guilty, making it one of the biggest criminal investigations in American history. Among them, at least 645 have been sentenced to prison terms, and about 250 people are in custody.
Yunus indicates election by late 2025 or mid 2026
Yunus also reiterated the government's commitment to enabling Bangladeshi expatriates to vote, a promise that has been made repeatedly in the past but never implemented.
Whatever happened to election in 3 months?
South Korean Opposition Parties Submit 2nd Impeachment Motion Against Yoon - Telegram
Article
At least two-thirds of the 300 National Assembly lawmakers are required to vote in favor to pass an impeachment motion. On Thursday, South Korea’s opposition parties on Thursday submitted a second impeachment motion against President Yoon Suk-yeol over his martial law declaration, according to multiple media outlets.
The main liberal opposition Democratic Party and five other minor parties submitted the second motion to impeach Yoon after the first one was scrapped last Saturday as the ruling People Power Party lawmakers boycotted a vote. The opposition bloc planned to report the motion to a plenary session of the National Assembly on Friday and put it up for a vote at 5:00 p.m. local time (0800 GMT) on Saturday.
Under the constitution, at least two-thirds of the 300 National Assembly lawmakers are required to vote in favor to pass an impeachment motion. If the motion is passed, the constitutional court will deliberate it for up to 180 days, during which Yoon’s presidential power will be suspended.
Yoon declared an emergency martial law on the night of Dec. 3, but it was revoked by the National Assembly hours later. The embattled president said earlier in the day that his martial law imposition aimed to protect against the “legislative dictatorship” of the majority opposition.
Some recent combat footage from the Donbass and Kursk oblast.
Russian drone destroys another German-built “Marder” infantry fighting vehicle in the DPR: https://s5.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/marder.mp4?_=2
Russian FPV drones struck two more British-supplied Challenger 2 tanks in Kursk oblast: https://southfront.press/in-video-british-challenger-tanks-burning-in-russian-kursk-region/
More Russian drone strikes on Kiev regime invaders in Kursk oblast (18+): https://news-pravda.com/world/2024/12/13/919252.html
Some Donbass news for today.
Russian forces liberated the Donetsk People’s Republic settlements of Uspenovka and Annovka, south of Kurakhovo: https://sputnikglobe.com/20241215/russian-troops-hoist-russian-flag-in-villages-south-of-kurakhovo-1121171054.html
Russian forces encircled around 700 Kiev regime troops, south of Kurakhovo: https://en.news-front.su/2024/12/15/afu-detachment-of-700-men-with-special-forces-got-surrounded-south-of-kurakhovo-rogov/
Russian strikes destroyed four US-built “Patriot” launchers, the combat control vehicle, and an AN/MPQ-65 radar station: https://sputnikglobe.com/20241215/russian-forces-destroy-four-us-made-patriot-launchers-in-special-operation-zone-1121176366.html
Russian FPV drone destroys a Kiev regime Humvee in the DPR (combat video): https://news-pravda.com/ukraine/2024/12/15/921661.html
Netanyahoo's curse blessing image is such a joke because there is only one curse, on both the Middle East and world, Israel and it's master/bitch America. I mention this because even though the Assad regime/government (I don't care) fell recently, Syria had long ago joined the long list of countries that had been completely destroyed from top to bottom so this one tiny parasitic fake country can exist.
In an interview of Yanis Varoufakis he said that until Palestine is free none of us free. This doesn't even need to be taken as an analogy. I mean consider climate change. The people and organizations that support meaningful actions on climate change (like public transport) are left wing and therefore support a free Palestine. They must therefore be crushed. All policies all make way in the name of the one great policy. The Nazi state of Israel (we really need an emoji of the Israeli flag with a swastika because that country is insane). Best part of the whole story? Israel's existence has more or less become contradictorily impossible. Climate change alone will make that cursed country uninhabitable in the near future, ironically.
How much of the terror infrastructure are they going to pass off as Assad?
Can anyone explain what is the deal with Isis, AQ and HTS relationship to each other? Why do Isis and AQ oppose each other when their ideology seems the same? How does Isis even still exist out in the desert with apparently everyone against them? why do they hold out instead of just going with other groups like Jolani did?
Video of Luigi being brought into court:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-PK65KvfX0
"Clearly [I'm a patsy?]. This is an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience."
Wall Street’s complex debt bonanza hits fastest pace since 2007
Banks sell bonds backed by revenues from chicken wings, music catalogues and oil wells
Investors’ “relentless” appetite for juicy returns has triggered the biggest boom on Wall Street in complex financial products since the lead-up to the global financial crisis in 2007. The global volume of structured finance transactions has hit $380bn this year, according to data from LSEG, which excludes real estate and traditional corporate loans. The figure is up by more than a fifth from the same period a year ago and about $1bn more than all of 2021, which had been the previous post-financial crisis peak. The boom in complex — and often riskier — deals highlights how buoyant markets and persistent US economic strength are allowing bankers to sell more esoteric products to investors keen to lock in high fixed returns. Transactions this year have forged bonds that are backed by income tied to the revenues generated by spicy chicken wings, data centres and music catalogues. “We have seen standout years with relentless investor appetite and that is what is going on right now,” said Jay Steiner, who leads US asset-backed securities at Deutsche Bank. Wall Street has been hunting for new sources of offerings in ever more obscure corners of the market as demand for structured products has risen. Deals in recent weeks have been tied to franchisee fee revenue of the US restaurant chain Wingstop, oil sales from ExxonMobil-backed wells and the demand for computing power and space provided by data centre operator CloudHQ. Growth in structured deals has made some investors nervous that investment managers flush with cash are not vetting risk, derisively calling some insurance funds “programmatic buyers” for automatically snapping up deals with little scrutiny. Still, analysts say the size of the market is small enough to avoid creating systemic risk.
Structured finance has been a boon to Wall Street at a time when other parts of the investment banking business remain muted, with fees rebounding but still down from where they were a few years ago. Underwriting fees, as a percentage of deal size, for structured products tend to be higher than government bonds and plain-vanilla corporate debt. Such deals are also alluring to investors because they typically offer higher yields than traditional bonds while still locking in returns. Meanwhile, insurance companies and other professional investors have been seeking places to deploy the wave of assets coming from retirees and others seeking income-producing investments. Benjamin Fernandez, head of esoteric structured finance at Barclays, which led the Wingstop transaction and co-led the oil well deal, both of which closed on the same day in mid-November, said: “While this isn’t the first time we’ve wrapped up two deals in one day, I expect this to become more frequent as the esoteric universe expands.” Other recent deals have required investors to scrutinise the finances of US homeowners who have installed Tesla solar panels and the music catalogues of Shakira, Bon Jovi and Fleetwood Mac. Structured deals linked to more arcane corners of the market have already risen 50 per cent this year compared with all of 2023 to $63bn, according to JPMorgan Chase. A large share of the overall structured deals market is backed by consumer credit, such as auto and credit card loans. Default rates on such debt have risen as the Federal Reserve has lifted borrowing costs higher while remaining within historic norms. As a result, lending has continued to expand with investors eager to finance growth. And as baby boomers age, more are buying annuities or shifting assets into income-producing investments. That has driven insurers selling annuities, and other professional investors, to step up purchases of structured debt, according to Keith Ashton, co-head of alternative credit at investment group Ares Management. Demand among investors and insurers for structured finance has been so strong that extra returns they require to engage even in the riskiest portions of these deals rather than buying ultra-low-risk debt have tumbled this year, according to Peter Van Gelderen, a portfolio manager at TCW. He added that the clamour for risky slices of structured deals had been amplified by strong competition to purchase less risky “senior” tranches. “The bid for riskier positions is higher than it was at the beginning of the year,” he said. “But the demand for the senior paper is so strong. That’s what’s driving all the new issuance.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Police arrested a “strong person of interest” Monday in the brazen Manhattan killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO after a quick-thinking McDonald’s employee in Pennsylvania alerted authorities to a customer who was found with a weapon and writings linking him to the ambush.
The suspect, identified by police as 26-year-old Luigi Nicholas Mangione, had a gun believed to be the one used in last Wednesday’s shooting of Brian Thompson, as well as writings suggesting anger with corporate America, police said. Mangione was taken into custody about 9:15 a.m. after police got a tip that he was eating at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, police said.
“He is believed to be our person of interest in the brazen, targeted murder of Brian Thompson,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Mangione had clothing and a mask similar to those worn by the shooter and a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching one the suspect used to check into a New York City hostel before the shooting, Tisch said. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione was born and raised in Maryland, has ties to San Francisco and a last known address in Honolulu, Hawaii. A message left Monday with a Philadelphia-area phone number connected to Mangione was not immediately returned.
It was Green Mario!
Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, appears walking in hospital after head surgery: 'I'm firm and strong'. The president was accompanied by a doctor and the first lady, Rosângela Silva, nicknamed Janja.
On Friday afternoon, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva posted a video in which he appears walking down the corridor of the Sírio-Libanês Hospital, in São Paulo, alongside one of the doctors and the first lady, Rosângela Silva, known as Janja. The images show a bandage on the president's head.
“I ask you to remain calm. I am firm and strong,” wrote the president in the message attached to the video. In the recording, he appears walking through the hospital corridors alongside neurosurgeon Marcos Stavale. This is the first image of the president since his surgery in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Lula also said that he is eating well and talking a lot. “Soon, I'll be ready to go home and keep working,” he posted.
The president left the ICU on Friday morning, after three days in hospital. The medical team expects him to leave hospital and return to Brasília at the beginning of next week.
Good news about Hexbear's favorite Brazilian Socdem
General Braga Netto, the mastermind behind coup attempts against Lula da Silva, and possibly his own ally Jair Bolsonaro, is arrested in Rio de Janeiro. General Braga Netto [is the first four-star general to be arrested in Brazil's history and will be held at the Eastern Military Command. He will answer for:
- Criminal association, aggravated by being a civil servant and taking advantage of his position.
- Abolition of the democratic rule of law (coup d'état)
- Attempting to depose by serious threat to constituted power
If sentenced to the maximum sentence, Braga Netto could be imprisoned for 33 years. The general was arrested today by the PF after complaints from Mauro Cid during his testimony in which he claimed that Braga Netto was coercing him and his father. General Braga Netto was arrested for coercion and obstruction of justice.
During Mauro Cid's testimony, the lieutenant colonel said that Braga Netto kept the cash to finance the coup plan in a wine container. Cid also said that Bolsonaro received daily reports from Braga Netto on the progress of the “Yellow Green Dagger” coup plot. It was said that after Mauro Cid's first interrogation, Braga Netto questioned Mauro Cid and forced him to practice his answers to try to get Braga Netto off the hook.
frenchies got new prime minister from the democrats (sic) party
Some news and combat footage from the Donbass and Kursk oblast.
Russian forces liberated the Kursk oblast settlement of Novoivanovka. In addition, Russian forces crossed the border and entered the Sumy oblast settlement of Vladimirovka (18+ combat footage included): https://southfront.press/russian-army-entered-sumy-region-threatens-ukrainian-forces-in-kursk-with-encirclement/
Russian forces liberated the Donetsk People’s Republic settlements of Shevchenko and Novotroitskoye (south and southwest of Kiev-occupied Krasnoarmeysk): https://southfront.press/military-situation-in-russian-kursk-region-and-on-ukrainian-frontlines-on-december-10-2024-maps-update/
Russian forces also drove Kiev regime troops out of the elevator area in the DPR's Kurakhovo: https://southfront.press/ukrainian-garrison-flees-from-kurakhovo/
Russian drone operators continue pounding Kiev regime forces (18+ footage): https://s5.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/strikes-3.mp4?_=4
i actually don’t care if people not ideologically aligned with the left are putting CEOs in body bags
lady returned from vacations for this
irgc wake up? who knows
