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Bulletins and News Discussion from March 24th to March 30th, 2025 - The Genocide Continues - COTW: Qatar

Image is of Gazans breaking their fast with the Iftar meal during the ongoing Ramadan.

Due to a request by @miz@hexbear.net, this thread's COTW is Qatar.

The ceasefire deal broke down early last week after Israel unilaterally changed the terms of the agreement and then blamed Hamas for not meeting them. Violence against civilians has rapidly accelerated to pre-ceasefire levels, with many hundreds dead already, aid once again cut off, and Israeli soldiers once again entering and occupying the attritional labyrinth that is Gaza.

I'm not yet in a position to make any solid predictions or analysis, as the geopolitical situation in and around Israel has changed fairly substantially over the last 6 months; in some ways benefiting Israel, and in other ways not. We know for sure how Hamas and Ansarallah are reacting (thankfully, with open hostility to both Israel and the United States), but the state of Hezbollah has been a giant question mark for months now, and precisely what Iran plans to do (beyond the usual level of supplying weaponry and intelligence to all the allies it can) is unknown. Syria will be almost certainly be a big wildcard, and we'll have to see if the compradors in Damascus can weather the storm.

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604 comments

  • French court finds far-right leader Marine Le Pen guilty in embezzlement case - NPR

    PARIS — A French court found Marine Le Pen guilty on Monday in an embezzlement case but didn't immediately say what her sentence might be and how it might impact the far-right leader's political future.

    Le Pen, sitting in the front row in the Paris court, showed no immediate reaction as the chief judge declared her guilty. She later repeatedly nodded her head in disagreement as the judge went into greater detail, saying Le Pen's party had illegally used European Parliament money for its own benefit. "Incredible," she whispered at one point.

    The judge also handed down guilty verdicts to eight other current or former members of her party who, like her, previously served as European Parliament lawmakers. Le Pen and her co-defendants face up to 10 years in prison. They can appeal, which would lead to another trial.

    The biggest concern for Le Pen is that the court may declare her ineligible to run for office "with immediate effect" — even if she appeals. That could prevent her from running for president in 2027. She has described such scenario as a "political death." The verdict was shaping up as a resounding defeat for Le Pen and her party. As well as finding her and eight other former European lawmakers guilty of embezzling public funds, the court also handed down guilty verdicts to 12 other people who served as parliamentary aides for Le Pen and what is now the National Rally party, formerly the National Front.

    The chief judge, who read the ruling delivered by her and two other justices, said Le Pen had been at the heart of "a system" that her party used to siphon off EU parliament money. The judge said Le Pen and other co-defendants didn't enrich themselves personally. But the ruling described the embezzlement as "a democratic bypass" that deceived the parliament and voters.

    Le Pen and 24 other officials from the National Rally were accused of having used money intended for European Union parliamentary aides to pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, in violation of the 27-nation bloc's regulations. Le Pen and her co-defendants denied wrongdoing.

    Le Pen, 56, was runner-up to President Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, and her party's electoral support has grown in recent years. During the nine-week trial that took place in late 2024, she argued that ineligibility "would have the effect of depriving me of being a presidential candidate" and disenfranchise her supporters.

    "There are 11 million people who voted for the movement I represent. So tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people would see themselves deprived of their candidate in the election," she told the panel of three judges. If Le Pen cannot run in 2027, her seeming natural successor would be Jordan Bardella, Le Pen's 29-year-old protégé who succeeded her at the helm of the party in 2021.

    Le Pen denied accusations she was at the head of the system meant to siphon off EU parliament money to benefit her party, which she led from 2011 to 2021. She argued instead that it was acceptable to adapt the work of the aides paid by the European Parliament to the needs of the lawmakers, including some political work related to the party.

    Hearings showed that some EU money was used to pay for Le Pen's bodyguard — who was once her father's bodyguard — as well as her personal assistant. Prosecutors requested a two-year prison sentence and a five-year period of ineligibility for Le Pen. Le Pen said she felt they were "only interested" in preventing her from running for president.

  • US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 16th night in a row, with multiple airstrikes targeting Sana'a Governorate.

    Quite a few more strikes reported in Sana'a Governorate.

    Al-Mayadeen reports more strikes in Sana'a Governorate.

    Lots of bad information circling around. The pictures of the "USS Harry Truman sinking" that are circulating on social media are six years old and of a different ship. Claims that the US Navy's E-2 Hawkeye AWACS aircraft has been shot down are also highly unlikely, nothing in Yemen's surface to air missile arsenal has the range to hit US assets in the rear like that, and with active SEAD operations going on from EA-18G Growlers, Ansarallah haven't shot down an MQ-9 Reaper drone over the past 16 days, yet alone a target as far away from the frontlines as an AWACS aircraft. They could try with some Jerry rigged anti radiation 'Hormuz' missiles to home in on the massive radome on the E-2, but such an attack is highly unlikely to succeed.

    Al Masirah TV twitter

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    The Yemeni Armed Forces have announced two operations in two separate statements:

    Cruise missile, naval and aerial drones launched at US Navy warships. No Anti Ship Ballistic Missiles. A Zulfiqar/Rezvan ballistic missile was also launched at Israel, a ballistic missile with a conventional ballistic flight path, no Palestine-2 missiles launched. Debris from the missile and an Israeli Arrow 3 interceptor landed in Israel.

    Israeli news site N12 revealed that the US operated THAAD air defence system has intercepted 6 Yemeni missiles already. If anyone is wondering why this is, it's because Israel don't really have a terminal phase intercept system for MaRV (Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicle) capable ballistic missiles. THAAD is the only system that fits the bill and can plug the gaps. Arrow 3 is a midcourse interception system, it does not intercept ballistic missiles in the terminal stage of flight. So if Yemeni ballistic missiles bypass Arrow 3, and they are MaRV capable missiles, Israeli air defence systems are not adequate. I'll explain below:

    Arrow 2 has a maximum flight ceiling/altitude of 50km, and a range of 100km, and uses a fragmentation warhead, not a kinetic one. David's Sling has a longer range up to 300km and a kinetic warhead, but a flight ceiling of only 15km, allowing for only last second interceptions. These flight ceilings are all problems when intercepting MaRV capable missiles that can perform glide phases within the earth's atmosphere, gliding above or near the limit their flight ceilings in the terminal phase. A MaRV could perform two glide phases, first one above Arrow-2 and one above David's Sling. So THAAD is brought in to plug the gap. THAAD can engage targets at altitudes between 40-150km, and at ranges up to 200km. So MaRVs cannot glide above the engagement ceiling of THAAD. The way to defeat THAAD would be to perform an extremely long glide phase below 40km under the engagement envelope of THAAD, but that puts the MaRV firmly within the engagement envelope of Arrow-2. Arrow 2s minimum altitude is 8km, so gliding under that would put the MaRV firmly within the engagement envelope of David's Sling. Also, with thicker atmosphere/air at lower altitudes, long glide phases become increasingly difficult as drag increases.

  • Small and bizarre news, but still news:

    So there's a non-recognized nation in Africa called Republic of Annobon, which is a small island that is part of Equatorial Guinea. A small group of separatists declared independence in like 2022 or something and well, they travel around the world exposing their cause I guess. Many such cases.

    Anyway, a small delegation headed by their Prime Minister visited our university, something completely random, and attended to a session of our History Assembly, which is celebrated each week or so to discuss career-related things and such. They were allowed to speak of their struggle against the Equatorial Guinean government. I failed to attend so I missed this peculiar event. Oh and Equatorial Guinea's President, Theodoro Obiang Nguema, as been in power since 1982, so there's that.

    The world gets weirder and weirder each day.

    And btw, before I forget:

    death to "israel"

    • Republic of Annobon

      The official language is Spanish but most of the inhabitants speak a creole form of Portuguese. The island's main industries are fishing and forestry.

      It was mostly due to this small island that Equatorial Guinea asked for observer status just after the Community of Portuguese Language Countries was formed in 1996, which led to a visit to Equatorial Guinea, in 1998, by the Portuguese foreign minister, Jaime Gama. Its historic, ethnographic, and religious identity is reflected in its provincial flag.

      In 2006, Equatorial Guinea achieved observer status with the hand of São Tomé and Príncipe. It kept lobbying to become a full member, contrary to international pressure that wanted to isolate the country due to human rights violations, becoming a full member in 2014 with the very active support of Portuguese-speaking Africa, with the Portuguese language being restored as an official language.

      Theodoro Obiang Nguema, as been in power since 1982, so there's that.

      And he overthrew his own Uncle, Francisco Macías Nguema.

      • This what wikipedia (western) says about him:

        Domestically, his presidency was characterized by attempts at Africanization and harsh persecution of non-Fang ethnic groups. In foreign policy, he quickly turned against Spain and allied himself with the Eastern Bloc, receiving support from the Soviet Union, Cuba and North Korea, and to a lesser extent, France and its local allies such as Cameroonian President Ahmadou Ahidjo and Gabonese President Omar Bongo, although relations with Cameroon and Gabon collapsed by 1976.

        Due to his dictatorship's severe human rights abuses and economic mismanagement, tens of thousands of people fled the country to avoid persecution. This led to Equatorial Guinea being internationally nicknamed the "Dachau of Africa". His rule also led to significant brain drain, as intellectuals and educated classes were particular targets for his persecution. In 1979, he was overthrown in a coup d'état by his nephew Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and was subsequently tried and executed.

        According to various sources, anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000 of the roughly 200,000 to 300,000 people living in the country were killed under his regime, with tens of thousands more fleeing the country. He has been compared to Pol Pot because of the violent, unpredictable, and anti-intellectual nature of his government

        Seems like ideologically he was inspired by Zaire/Mugabe.

  • German Greens want to force people of all ages to serve the state in a new Freedom Service™. Either military or some community service.

    "It is time to ask the question: What can you do for you country?", Schulze said to Deutsche Presse-Agentur. The threats are growing.

    "In order make our society more robust, to defend our freedom, and to strengthen cooperation, we need everybody. The Freedom Service is a collective project for Germany, by all and for all. Through the Freedom Service, we will to bring together generations and milieus, strengthen our society, and defend what is important to us."

    I'm not making this up btw.

    They're no longer in government of course, that's just their contribution to the debate about re-introducing conscription.

    • Something I really don't like about conscription (besides the "teach young people to kill for capital" thing) is how condescendingly the victims of conscription is addressed by the politicians aged 50+ supporting it.

      You learn a lot of valuable skills, you get in shape, you learn the values of teamwork and discipline, it is so good for social cohesion. Actually it is for your own best but you are all too immature and childish to understand so we, the responsible adults, need to use the coercive apparatus of the state to force you into military service if you refuse.

      If it is so good, why not use it for everyone, including people our own age? Don't be absurd.

      The idea of conscription works very well as an extension of reactionary old and middle-aged people's vicious hatred against young people.

    • Dang not just german greens but bavarian greens?

      Anyways they've been floating that kind of shit for forever because there's a huge demand for people working in healthcare, senior care, education etc. which just can't get fixed. No better wages wouldn't help at all stop asking.

      Like I'm not even opposed to a general idea of that kind of service that will also force people from different walks of life to interact with each other but in the case of germany it'll only be done to get cheap labor for critical work out of the people.

      • Why should the bavarian greens be any better? I come from the state that has been "green" for a decade and the greens there are basically cdu and pocketed by big car.

    • German politicians should be measured in their percentage likelihood of having a sieg heil outburst in public

  • Damn, it took almost dying from a lynch mob of rabid Zionists for him to be properly credited:
    https://xcancel.com/MayadeenEnglish/status/1906129001405399463

    The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has apologized for excluding Palestinian co-director Hamdan Ballal’s name in its response to the Israeli settler attack and his subsequent detainment.

    Following global outcry from the film industry, including 690 Academy members, among them Mark Ruffalo, Riz Ahmed, Ava DuVernay, and Alfonso Cuaron, the Academy issued a follow-up letter on Friday acknowledging its omission.

    “We regret that we failed to directly acknowledge Mr. Ballal and the film by name,” read the statement from Academy CEO Bill Kramer and President Janet Yang, adding that the Academy “condemns violence of this kind anywhere in the world” and opposes the suppression of free speech "under any circumstances."

  • US airstrikes on Yemen continue for the 15th night in a row, with multiple airstrikes reported in Saada city and Saada Governorate.

    More strikes reported in Saada and Sana'a Governorates.

    No statement from the Yemeni Armed Forces tonight. This is the third night in a row of US airstrikes with no statement by them, and there have been no operations against Israel either during this time period (announced or unannounced), no ballistic or cruise missiles launched at Israel.

    Al Masirah TV twitter

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  • New Big Serge just dropped

    TL;DR Big Serge sees negotiations as untenable and theater. Russia is winning on the battlefield and Ukraine cannot, politically, make any meaningful concessions, which means that fighting will settle this and likely in Russia’s favor.

    Thesis:

    I have never made any bones about my belief that the war in Ukraine will be resolved militarily: that is, it will be fought to its conclusion and end in the defeat of Ukraine in the east, Russian control of vast swathes of the country, and the subordination of a rump Ukraine to Russian interests. Trump’s self conception is greatly tied up in his image as a “dealmaker”, and his view of foreign affairs as fundamentally transactional in nature. As the American president, he has the power to force this framing on Ukraine, but not on Russia. There remain intractable gulfs between Russia’s war aims and what Kiev is willing to discuss, and it is doubtful that Trump will be able to reconcile these differences. Russia, however, does not need to accept a partial victory simply in the name of goodwill and negotiation. Moscow has recourse to a more primal form of power. The sword predates and transcends the pen. Negotiation, as such, must bow to the reality of the battlefield, and no amount of sharp deal making can transcend the more ancient law of blood.

    Classic battlefield analysis of the Kursk offensive, good slop for you war nerds (Russia focused on the flanks while Ukraine mostly prioritized depth over breadth):

    Despite their tactical surprise and the early capture of Sudzha, the AFU was never able to parlay this into a meaningful penetration or exploitation in Kursk. Why? The answer seems to be a nexus of operational and technical problems the Ukrainians were unable to create a wide penetration into Russia (for the most part, the “opening” of their salient was less than 30 miles wide), which greatly reduced the number of roads available to them for supply and reinforcement. The narrow penetration and poor road access in turn allowed the Russians to concentrate strike systems on the few available lines of communication, to the effect that the Ukrainians struggled to either supply or reinforce the grouping based around Sudzha - this low logistical and reinforcement connectivity in turn made it impossible for the Ukrainians to stage additional forces to try and expand the salient. This created a positive feedback loop of confinement and isolation for the Ukrainian grouping which made their defeat more or less inevitable.

    At the risk of making a perilous historical analogy, the operational form was very similar to the famous 1944 Battle of the Bulge: taken by surprise by a German counteroffensive, Dwight Eisenhower prioritized limiting the width, rather than the depth of the German penetration, moving reinforcements to defend the “shoulders” of the salient.

    Operationally, the main distinctive of the fighting in Kursk is the orthogonal orientation of effort by the combatants. By this, we mean that Russian counteroffensives were directed at the flanks of the salient, steadily compressing the Ukrainians into a more narrow position (by the end of 2024, the Ukrainians had lost half of the territory they once held), while Ukrainian efforts to restart their progress were aimed at moving deeper into Russia.

    On a schematic level, the Ukrainian position in Kursk was doomed by mid-September when Russian troops recaptured Snagost. If the Ukrainians had successfully isolated the south bank of the Seym, they would have had the river as a valuable defensive barrier protecting their left flank as well as access to valuable space and additional supply roads. As it happened, the Ukrainian flank was crumpled early in the operation by the Russian victories at Korenevo and Snagost, which left Ukraine trying to fight its way out of a very compressed and road-poor salient. The (correct) Russian decision to concentrate its counterattacks on the flanks further compressed the space and left the Ukrainians with inadequate supply linkages subject to persistent Russian drone strikes.

    Confinement bred strangulation, and strangulation bred confinement. Fighting with a caved in flank for months, the Ukrainian grouping was doomed to operational sterility and eventual defeat almost at the outset.

    The state of the front (multiple ongoing collapses for Ukraine and more to come):

    The Kursk salient is the second front to be fully collapsed by the Russian Army in the past three months. The first was the southern Donetsk front, which was completely caved in over the course of December and then rolled up in the opening weeks of the year, which had the effect of not only knocking the AFU out of longstanding strongholds like Ugledar and Kurakhove, but also safeguarding the flank of the Russian advance towards Pokrovsk.

    There was no Toretsk counter-offensive. Rather Russia was claiming a victory it hadn’t achieved:

    It appears that what actually happened was rather that the Russian MoD announced the capture of the city while its extremities were still contested. Russian forces remain in control of the bulk of the city, but Ukrainian units remain dug at the periphery and fighting has continued in the “grey zone.” DeepState (a Ukrainian mapping project) confirmed that there was no general Ukrainian counterattack - rather, the fighting was simply part of a continuous struggle for the western periphery of the city.

    Negotiation is theater (return to thesis):

    So long as Russia continues to advance on the battlefield, they have no incentive to (as they would see it) rob themselves of a full victory by accepting a truncated and premature settlement.

    The problem for Ukraine, if history is any guide, is that it is not actually very easy to surrender. In the First World War, Germany surrendered while its army was still in the field, fighting in good order far from the German heartland. This was an anticipatory surrender, born of a realistic assessment of the battlefield which indicated that German defeat was an inevitability. Berlin therefore opted to bow out prematurely, saving the lives of its young men once the struggle had become hopeless. This decision, of course, was poorly received, and was widely denounced as betrayal and cowardice. It became a politically scarring watershed moment that shaped German sensibilities and revanchist drives for decades to come.

    So long as Zelensky’s government continues to receive western support and the AFU remains in the field - even if it is being steadily rolled back and chewed up all along the front - it is difficult to imagine Kiev acceding to an anticipatory surrender. Ukraine must choose between doing this the easy way and the hard way, as the parlance goes, but this is not really a choice at all, particularly given the Kremlin’s insistence that a change of government in Kiev is a prerequisite to peace as such. Any successful path to a negotiated piece runs through the ruins of Zelensky’s government, and is therefore largely precluded at the moment.

    So for all the diplomatic cinema, the brute reality of the battlefield remains the same. The battlefield is the first principle, and the ultimate repository of political power. The diplomat is a servant of the warrior, and Russia takes recourse to the fist and the boot and the bullet.

  • Myanmar has updated the number of victims of this morning's earthquake to at least 144 dead and 732 injured, as well as missing. The military junta ruling the country has opened the doors of its diplomatic service to ask for international help. "Any country, any organization," pleaded Min Aung Hlaing, a Burmese general and the current President of Myanmar's State Administrative Council.

    • Telegram

  • After ex-President Jair Bolsonaro was formally charged with leading an armed criminal organization to plot a military coup by the Supreme Court today, he said, "discussing hypotheses isn't a crime." Not only is he wrong, he's confessed again. I'll explain why here: Bolsonaro's argument that merely discussing a coup is not illegal fails because:

    1. Intent matters: If discussions involve planning, recruitment, or incitement, they cross into criminal conspiracy.
    1. National security laws do not require the coup to succeed—preparatory acts (like organizing meetings, securing weapons, or drafting plans) are already crimes;
    1. Brazilian courts have ruled that even theoretical planning can be punishable if it shows a concrete threat to democracy.

    In Tokyo, Brazil's President Lula said there's no use for ex-President Bolsonaro to pretend he's being persecuted. "It's clear that the ex-president tried to stage a coup in Brazil. It is clear that he tried to help plan my assassination. "and the assassinations of the vice president and the former president of the Brazilian Electoral Court. [...] He knows what he did. There's no use begging for amnesty before the trial, that amounts to saying, 'I'm guilty.' He should focus on trying to prove his innocence."

    Twitter

  • US airstrikes on Yemen continue for the 13th night in a row, with multiple rounds of airstrikes, with multiple strikes each, targeting various areas of the capital city Sana'a, including the leadership centre and airport, along with various strikes in different areas in the Sana'a, Saada and Hodeidah Governorates.

    Strikes reported in Al Jawf Governorate.

    Strikes targeting mountains in Amran Governorate. 8 airstrikes reported.

    Total of 19 airstrikes targeting Arman Governorate, including communications networks.

    Very intense rounds of airstrikes currently taking place.

    More airstrikes in Marib Governorate.

    Over 45 total airstrikes reported tonight, this is the most intense round of airstrikes since the beginning of the current campaign against Ansarallah in Yemen.

    Al Masirah TV twitter

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    • So much for

      no wars.

    • Back when they were raiding and capturing ships, as well as blowing them up, the US didn't bomb Yemen all that much (comparatively speaking), but now that they're not doing so the US bombs with great force. It's very disproportionate and it's sending a message to Iran, 100% sure on this one.

      • Well Ansarallah did state that they would close off the sea to Israeli ships. So the US decided to take initiative and attack Yemen before Ansarallah fired on a Israeli linked ship, and before the ceasefire in Gaza broke down which would have led to the resumption of direct Yemeni ballistic missile attacks on Israel. That way the US can take the first actions, before any Israeli bombings of Yemen, or before Yemen starts firing at ships or Israel. The US gets to dictate the pace of current engagements unless Ansarallah decide a wider escalation is necessary.

        There have also been advancements in the US Navy and Air Force ,more on that in this thread, being able to defend themselves against unmanned aerial systems, namely drones and cruise missiles, with new weaponry and tactics. That allows the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier to remain closer to Yemen than before, at most between 700-800km away from Yemen in Jeddah and just capable of just absorbing the drone and cruise missile attacks without having to retreat further. 700km is the important number here because it's the maximum range of the Zolfogar Basir Anti Ship Ballistic Missile. The aircraft carrier can also venture closer to Yemen to launch attacks, later falling back to the 700km distance before getting overwhelmed by large Ansarallah attacks. The closer the aircraft carrier can get, the more sorties the aircraft onboard can launch within a certain time frame.

        The message to Iran is also there and obvious, especially with the 5-7 B-2 Spirit stealth bombers in Diego Garcia.

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