> looking for a new source on China

> ask the liberal if their source is CIA or Zenz

> they don't understand

> pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is CIA and what is Zenz

> they laugh and say, "It's a good source sir"

> click the link

> its Zenz

Rule of thumb for all hexbearian comrades: You see a hexbear post, you upvote it because you like it! Get it to the top of the lemmyverse charts so everyone can appreciate our big beautiful posters!

I'd like to thank federation for reminding me that liberalism is a festering husk kept afloat solely by the collection of literal compound interest on 500 years of genocidal plunder.

The liberal mind is where critical thinking skills go to lay down and die. Lemmy and the anglosphere writ large is a space of pure mental atrophy where you can see reflected the decline of the Western bloc in real time. No one left to fill critical roles, every administrative organ just exposed to open air, infected and dying.

Colonisers were never supposed to believe the words they were saying.

I like to imagine people stomping in here from the fucking 900 comment thread going on right now, taking off their blood-stained helmets, laying down their gore-dipped swords against the wall, taking off their ragged armor

this really has be the funniest week on this site in a while, federation was a great idea. just imagining the typical reddit liberal who has experienced no pushback whatsoever on any take on China or Taiwan or Russia for years and getting ready to bask in the upvotes again by saying "China bad, everybody is a slave" and then being attacked by a hive of hornets

the communists remaining on lemmy trying to keep the liberals out like at Helm's Deep and then Hexbear arrives. "at dawn, look to the east."

There's some unironic NAFO fella in one of the China threads. Bonus is they're from the Canadian instance lmao

I like how libs come from other instances to say this place is an echo chamber, when like half of our news stories in the socialist news mega come from the FT, WSJ, and other Western business press.

Extremely sad that I was able to find actual conscription/draft defenders in the year 2023. Liberals on the lemmyverse have gotten really scratched lately.

Imagine defending military conscription for the Ukraine war. Seriously. Absolute ghoul behaviour.

Also, meeting some Cuban communists in a few hours.

Lukashenko boots Wagner out of Belarus

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has reportedly kicked the Wagner PMC out of Belarus, after refusing to finance the Russian mercenaries.

Wagner forces left Russia for Belarus as part of a settlement deal brokered by Lukashenko following the armed mutiny on June 24 that saw Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin turn on his boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But reports have now emerged suggesting Lukashenko has refused to finance their stay in the country and the mercenaries are being "bussed" back to Russia for a “vacation.” According to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, operations to remove all Wagner Group men began earlier in the month, with a second phase to remove the rest going into effect this weekend.

Wagner’s services don’t come cheap. Putin recently admitted that the Kremlin has spent around $1bn on the private military company last year, using state budget funds. Previously the Kremlin denied all knowledge of Wagner.

VChK-OGPU said the men headed for Russia are mercenaries that rejected re-assignment to Libya, where the Group has been operating for years.

"A source of the Cheka-OGPU said that after the meeting of PMC Wagner, everyone who did not sign up for a business trip to Libya was urgently sent on vacation to Russia,” VChK-OGPU posted on its channel. “Right now, mercenaries in Belarus are packing their bags and going back to Russia on vacation. At the same time, everyone was asked to stay in touch with PMCs, since at any moment a certain command from above could follow." Earlier Lukashenko said that the Wagner forces would be used to train the Belarusian army.

lmfao

"nah, actually, get out of my country, freeloaders!"

It’s so funny how libs stumble in here peddling their tired bullshit that they’re used to getting absolutely zero pushback on and then going “I can’t believe the Hexbear fascists don’t Slava their Ukrainis, my word!” and running off to their home instance bitch and cry about it while their fellow cretins pat each other on the back for how brave they are for standing up to Hexbearian fascism and how they’re never wrong and always right

The offensive failed

So it's time for peace talks then?

It's time for peace talks, right?

Found this on Twitter posted by an Ukraine flag account. And it’s actually perfect, it shows how they prefer victory at the cost of Ukrainian blood over a negotiated peace to save Ukrainian lives.

It's pretty cool that people are calling anyone who wants an end to the Ukraine war "pro-genocide". What does victory look like to these people?

Financial Times: Is Britain really as poor as Mississippi?

https://archive.ph/ZJp4m

It was almost nine years ago to the day when the question of where Britain would rank among the US states for economic heft first became “a thing”. In an article for the Spectator, Fraser Nelson calculated that on a gross domestic product per capita basis, and after adjusting for price differences, the UK would sit in 49th place out of the 50 US states, narrowly squeezing in ahead of Mississippi.

As Britain’s economy has half slumbered, half stumbled its way through the nine years since, pausing to commit occasional acts of egregious self-sabotage, the Mississippi Question has only grown more popular. Could this be the year the UK economy is surpassed by that of the US state with America’s highest poverty rate and a life expectancy almost 10 years shorter than Britain’s?

For a fleeting moment recently, it looked like the time had come, but this was due to an erroneous comparison of nominal figures for Mississippi with inflation-adjusted numbers for the UK.

So no, the short answer is that to date, Britain remains free of that one particular ignominy. GDP per capita has remained ahead of Mississippi’s by about 15 per cent over the past two decades, and indeed as recently as 2019 the UK ranked ahead of no fewer than six of America’s poorest and most economically anaemic states. Heady days, indeed.

No, the UK isn't as poor as Mississippi.

It's a poor as Alabama. Big difference!

But the focus on one comparison, and one surface-level statistic, masks more interesting — and no less troubling — trends beneath the surface. If we’re going to compare Britain to each of the US states individually, then why not also look at the UK’s constituent parts?

It will surprise nobody that London accounts for an outsized share of Britain’s output, but the magnitude of the UK’s economic monopolarity is remarkable. Removing London’s output and headcount would shave 14 per cent off British living standards, precisely enough to slip behind the last of the US states. Britain in the aggregate may not be as poor as Mississippi, but absent its outlier capital it would be.

Sorry, correction. If you remove the money laundering capital of the world, the UK is in fact as poor as Mississippi.

By comparison, amputating Amsterdam from the Netherlands would shave off 5 per cent, and removing Germany’s most productive city (Munich) would only shave off 1 per cent. Most strikingly, for all of San Francisco’s opulent output, if the whole of the bay area from the Golden Gate to Cupertino seceded tomorrow, US GDP per capita would only dip by 4 per cent.

And the chart they put together:

Britons have mixed feelings about London. It’s the home of the metropolitan elite and sometimes seems more at home with New York than Newcastle, but it keeps Britain economically afloat. Not only in terms of the goods and services it produces but also in its higher tax revenues and fiscal transfers to poorer parts of the country.

As it turns out, letting a psychotic gammon deindustrialize your country so she can one up Reagan was not smart.

There were fears that the capital would suffer more from Brexit than most regions, but thus far the opposite has been true. Exports of services have held up relatively well while trade in goods has cratered, and London’s economy is 4 per cent larger today than it was in 2019, bucking the broader national trend of stagnation or decline. London is the only one of the 10 regions in England and Wales to have grown in every quarter since the nadir of the pandemic recession in the second quarter of 2020, while three others — including the South East — have dipped into regional recessions in the past 12 months.

Money laundering is even easier now that we don't have the EU regulating us!

This is not to say the capital is in rude health — its status as the pre-eminent global financial hub is slipping away, and its productivity growth has been lagging behind that of the rest of the country for the past 15 years — but merely to highlight the double-edged sword Britain has ended up with.

Its capital is the one thing keeping the UK hanging on in the upper economic echelons, but the decades-long London-centricism of everything from finance and culture to politics has engendered a reluctance to allow any other part of the country to be an agent in its own destiny in the way that London has been.

If Britain is to one day banish the Mississippi Question and return to upward mobility, it will require more than one economic engine.

LOL good luck!

Zelenskyy advisor says Ukraine "optimistic" about counteroffensive

When you’ve been afraid of the Russian army for 20 years, saying it’s the world’s second army, then expect that it can be destroyed in a matter of days. That seems a little strange to us. In reality, this war will take some time.

my brother in christ, you were the ones talking about being in Crimea by the summer

Hey add another dipshit Ukrainian government to the list, its like they can't help themselves openly saying just how much they want to do some cleansing holy shit.

"A Russian passport is as dangerous as a rocket." Fucking saying that unironically

Telegram

“We understand that obtaining a passport in itself is not a crime. But Russia is doing everything to go further for a passport. Steps that can then be qualified as signs of collaborationist activity. Now Russia, in September, plans to hold elections. That is why they are so hastily passportizing our people,” the official added.

When you deem anyone regardless of ethnic or cultural background trying to obtain a passport a "collaborator".

Go fucking die you dipshit libs that openly support this openly fash shit.

When things are going well

Ukraine to fire all regional military recruitment chiefs

Ukraine has faced recruitment challenges as the war with Russia nears the 18-month mark and the military is occasionally hit by scandals revealing graft or heavy-handed recruitment tactics.

I guess you could describe kidnapping as a "heavy-handed recruitment tactic"

My favorite genre of post is the one that comes up every 2 hours about how we’re being too mean to the libs

Reminds me of the old sub where we had to “accommodate YangGang”. They called us authoritarian tankies then and every time we’ve tried “outreach” (peak taking online stuff too seriously). The only way to keep the liberals is to cater to their views, like lemmy.ml did. Before you know it they’ll bring along their lib friends and by month’s end they’ll be running the whole show. This has happened every time a leftist group has let liberals run unchecked.

Liberals must be confronted at each and every turn unless the decision has been made to sacrifice any semblance of an ideological stance in the name of being a big tent party that preaches the holy virtue of voting blue no matter who.

But surely this time will be different!

1k+ comments are now the norm.

Guy who's convinced that the real counteroffensive will start any day now

Another boat carrying refugees and migrating people has capsized in the channel between the UK and France. Six people are dead, with two more missing.

This brings the number of unnatural deaths of migrating people to just under 3500 this year, so far. For context, that's about 500 more than were killed on 9/11 and the count may well double before the end of thr year.

so the China economy thread is the new China airspace thread huh

The Economist: Expensive Energy Might Have Killed More Europeans Than COVID-19 Last Winter

Their number is 68,000 people, due to increased energy costs since interruption of energy trade with Russia and sanctions and also colder temperatures. 68k of pretty much people who couldn't afford new energy prices, that is, poor people. Now I remember debating with friends some time ago about the war, and how badly is it going for Russia because one of their T-90M tanks was captured intact by the Ukrainian Army or their abandoned equipment was being towed by tractors, like in the meme! Sure, Russia is indeed paying a big cost in this war, not only in manpower but also economically. But so is Europe, and while a country like Germany pays nothing but crazy volunteers in terms of manpower, they'll have to pay the social, political and economical costs of the war. In their case, energy costs will increase wich puts a burden in average germans, at the same time, the Bundeswehr is seeing a rearmament process, and who's going to pay for the new contracts, the bourgeoisie?

They're in a big gamble right now, and the future is uncertain. Europe is not in a comfortable position, climate change is increasing in severity (several parts of Europe saw a pretty scary heat wave, like Spain), the war in Ukraine has no end in sight, ties with Russia are completely severed, Nordstream was blown up and nobody knows who did it (we do, but we don't tell), the world is shaping up to be at least a bipolar one, and has Europe noticed they have a leash that leads to the United States? Problems like people dying because they can't afford new energy costs are social problems, they lead to protests, and you don't want people out in the streets smashing shit up because they can't tolerate their situation no more.. Social tension is indeed bad.

How will US-EU relations evolve over time? That I don't know, but I'm sure part of the EU (and the British) leadership are considering their status right now as a mere US vassal.

Financial Times: Why isn’t everyone talking about Niger?

I don't really care about the content of the article, the answer is pretty obvious, I'm just pointing out that it's funny that this article is behind a paywall

edit: actually, having read it, it's even more unintentionally funny because they also don't really talk about the coup in Niger, they just discuss that everybody else isn't discussing it and what that means for us. introspecting about introspection.

In my protracted war with Forbes, yet again I stumble on shit that makes me mald. When the Russians use anything older than today it's a sign they're running out of everything and are about to regress to the Neolithic age but when the Ukrainians use something that was FUCKING INVENTED IN NINETEEN FIFTY-FUCKING-SEVEN THEY'RE SEEN AS CUNNING SCRAPPY UNDERDOGS THAT ARE BUT ONE SWIFT KICK TO THE FRONT DOOR AWAY FROM COLLAPSING THE WHOLE ROTTEN RUSSIAN EDIFICE

Previous mald sessions from forbes

https://hexbear.net/comment/3664822

Current mald session

https://archive.is/cPJX0

When a Russian or Ukrainian brigade is on the defensive, even temporarily, it will dig in. Literally. “The work of trenching machines and bulldozers will be supplemented with old-fashioned shovels to provide protection for men and equipment,” Lester Grau and Charles Bartles explained in their definitive The Russian Way of War.

THATS THE BASICS OF FUCKING MODERN WARFARE YOU FUCKING WAR COLLEGE CLOWNS! ARTILLERY WILL SHARE ITS LOVE WITH ANYONE NOT HIDING FROM IT!

The US can’t use its $110 million drone base in Niger

Dronies have it rough

Incredible that Americans manage to dress like plantation owners during an invasion

Armenia has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council due to the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of the blockade of the Lachin corridor, the press service of the Armenian Foreign Ministry reported on Saturday.

Have I ever mentioned that I'd met Evan Neumann, one of the Jan 6 rioters, here in Belarus where he got an asylum? It happened about a year go, but I haven't posted in a while so.

There was an interview with him on the local news, that's how I recognized him. I was just drinking with a friend at a place that only sells shots, and he was there with some dude. So I went to say hi bc I was sufficiently drunk :) He said he sold (or was selling?) his house in San Francisco, so on that money alone he can just happily grow old in Belarus.

Real cold war shit really. Our govt topplers flee west, western flee east. Get weaponized in the war of narratives, ofc.

man, getting more and more exposure to the libs on here, it's just...

I, too, once thought Castro was a dictator. I, too, once thought that China was a totalitarian hellscape in which people are governed by social credit scores. I, too, once thought that the DPRK was a so-called "hermit kingdom" of its own making with effectively hereditary monarchs. I, too, once thought that the Soviet Union was an abject failure, or at best a highly imperfect project that "proved" that communism cannot work in practice. I, too, thought that liberalism and civility and rational debate and compromise between differing political parties was the only way to really achieve anything, and that you must always take the high road even while your right-wing opposite takes dishonourable stabs at you. I believed that swathes of Africa and Asia were undeveloped - rather than underdeveloped - because of corruption, not exploitation. The war in Iraq might have been bad in retrospect and we shouldn't have gone in based on a lie, but somebody had to be the world police. That's obvious, right? The police are what keeps us safe!

These were all beliefs I had when I was young and sheltered from the world, when the hard edge of economic consequences hadn't yet really hit me. When those consequences and problems did hit me, I didn't have the classic experience of going from a dreamy liberal living in fantasies of equality to a hardened conservative who understood that things have to be unfair because that's just life. I realized, through personal experiences and also through exposure to ideas from the left, including some of the people on here, that most of what I knew about other countries and history was tainted with misinformation, or twisted beyond recognition, or just flatly not true. I wasn't brainwashed. I haven't been turned into an agent for a foreign government. I'm certainly not in an echo chamber - I'm literally surrounded by contrary ideas every day because other people play the radio or watch the television around me and expose me to the latest and greatest of liberal arguments for X and Y.

Others have expressed this point before, what strikes me about all the libs on here is that they seem totally unaware that the vast majority of us once held the exact same positions that they once did and have moved past them. That we might have been in their shoes. We all know the arguments, we've not only seen them, many of us were previously convinced by them.

Will zelensky flee to the west when the war (eventually?) ends? There's a currently unoccupied townhouse in london belgravia that could serve as a potential new abode.

Putin had plans to continue holding his territory in Ukraine but then he saw a post by @liberaldogmom@lemm.ee calling him Putler and Russia "Rhuzzia" and he was like "I have no choice but to abandon communism now".

https://archive.is/IzD1s

Business Insider yet again actually doing the bare minimum of actual journalism and reports the truth on the fact NATO war doctrine - thats designed to fight and lose against sandal-wearing goat herders armed with AKs - is a fucking L for fighting a conventional war against a peer opposition force.

Ukrainian troops left 'underprepared' by NATO training as instructors don't understand the type of warfare or the enemy, report says

It's a boomer boater kulak who leaves a 1 star review on google maps for a Maui McDonald's that was closed due to the apocalypse wildfires.

I believe in News Megathread supremacy

have any liberals wandered into this thread yet, in shock and horror?

Construction of vital power dam in Niger halted due to sanctions

The construction of the $800M Kandadji hydroelectric project in Niger has been halted by the Chinese contractor Gezhouba Group which claims that most of its funds have been frozen due to the current sanctions after the coup. In a letter dated 7th August, the group said it would halt operations and lay off its workforce. They added that they will re-deploy workers again if finances are secured.

The dam, upon completion, is expected to boost the country’s grid by 50%. Niger’s population has experienced a vast lack of electricity with only 4.3 million people having access to energy as 90% of its population uses wood as a source of energy.

The dam was also expected to help control the Niger River which will make downstream irrigation possible during the prolonged dry seasons.

The West will stop African countries' development by any means necessary

South Africa Supports Iran’s Entry Into BRICS

Iran is one of more than 20 countries formally seeking to join the economic bloc currently comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Friday that Pretoria fully supports Iran's membership in the BRICS group.

In a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Ramaphosa said "South Africa is interested in Iran being accepted as a friendly country by the BRICS," Iran's Mehr news agency reported.

Ramaphosa told the 15th meeting of the Islamic Republic of Iran-South Africa Joint Commission in Pretoria that Tehran has the "full support of Pretoria Africa in this regard."

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will pay an official visit to the African country in which several documents on cooperation between the two countries will be signed, Ramaphosa said.

The tweet reads, "South African president supports Iran's entry into BRICS. "South Africa wants Iran to be accepted into BRICS as a friendly country," said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a meeting with Iranian Minister Hossein Amir."

For his part, the Iranian foreign minister said that the president of the Islamic Republic is scheduled to pay two visits to South Africa, the current BRICS chair. Raisi will attend the Friends of BRICS summit to be held August 22-24 in Johannesburg and in the fall he will travel to the African country to discuss bilateral relations.

Iran is one of more than 20 countries formally aspiring to join the economic bloc currently comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor recently confirmed that 23 countries, including Iran, have submitted formal applications to join the association. According to the minister, further expanding BRICS membership would be one of the items on the agenda of the upcoming summit.

British Racism Barge Update:

The flammable prison barge for imprisoning asylum seekers that I was giving updates on last week is being evacuated. Not because it's unjust, illegal, or has already caught on fire. A new threat has arrived: legionella in the water supply. Another triumph of our "sensible immigration policy".

A spectre is haunting Lemmy — the spectre of the 1000 comment Hexbear news thread

Going to share a set of memes I saw on a Russian meme site which you might enjoy. Rough translations since I'm not at all fluent.

Somewhere in a parallel universe...

Macron announced a special military operation in Niger

Revolt of the Algerians and counteroffensive of Niger

To the French war ship: IDI NAHUI!! (FUCK OFF!!) [reference to black sea event with a Ukrainian boat to a Russian war ship]

NO to Macron's war

Western brands: We leave from France

McDonald's rebrands as "Baguette and dot" - this is a reference to renamed McDonald's in Russia, which is now called "vkusno i tochka", lit. "tasty and dot" or "tasty, period."

---

there was a shooting ON the highway in my state

Hartford police said this brings the city to 27 homicides for 2023. There were seven homicides in five days in Hartford, according to police.

“This is highly unusual. Last year was a big year. We’re already ahead of where we were at this time last year. We didn’t start off that way. It’s a little sad that we ended up this way,” Hartford Police Lt. Arron Boisvert said.

love living in normal country

I'm at my parents' and the TV is playing a copaganda show about game wardens helping hunt down illegal immigrants at the Mexican border

They name dropped MS-13

Americans think they aren't propagandized lmao

any clue as to why the entire mainstream media of brazil is talking about chinese economic collapse when they are having deflation after spending 8 months convicing me the brazilian central bank is wisely seeking to lower inflation and cause deflation with high interest rates*

*thats a bit of a lie, the capitalists are hating on the central bank too

Burkina: a radio suspended after an interview against the putsch in Niger

The government of Burkina Faso resulting from a coup d'etat has decided to suspend "until further notice" the broadcasting of Radio Oméga, one of the most listened to in the country, after the broadcast Thursday of an interview "enamelled with insulting remarks against the new Nigerien authorities".

...

Radio Omega, a subsidiary of the Omega Media group which also has a television channel, owned by journalist and former Foreign Minister Alpha Barry, had ceased broadcasting after the release of the press release, AFP noted.

She denounced Friday an "unfair and unfounded decision", and will "use all avenues of appeal". She considers that this suspension "without notice and without prior notification of the structure in charge of media regulation is a flagrant violation of the laws in force and an unacceptable attack on freedom of expression and freedom of the press".

In the interview incriminated by the government, Ousmane Abdoul Moumouni, pro-Bazoum, would have made "insulting remarks against the new Nigerien authorities", according to Mr. Ouédraogo. According to the Burkinabè government, Ousmane Abdoul Moumouni's organization "clearly militates for violence and war against the sovereign people of Niger" and the will of his movement is to put President Bazoum back in power by "all means".

I can excuse calls for violent military action against Niger, but I draw the line at censoring those views because that is totalitarianism

Can someone here remind me of the history behind the tactic of bravely advancing backwards currently being utilized by the glorious Ukrainian freedom fighters in their no-issues, smooth-sailing, flawless counteroffensive?

Germany is debating whether to ban the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as the party surges to 21 per cent in the polls, amid warnings from intelligence officials that its members are becoming increasingly extreme

In a rare move, the respected Der Spiegel news magazine weighed into the debate with a leader titled: “Ban the enemies of the constitution!” It warned that “the AfD has become more and more radicalised. It’s time to defend democracy with better weapons”.

The co-leader of Olaf Scholz’s ruling Social Democrats also said a ban should be considered if the AfD is categorised as a group of “proven Right-wing extremists” by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

They are only doing this because the US is afraid Germany will elect a government that is against NATO and Ukraine. Tbh, I hope the AfD gets banned, screw them, even if the reason for it is cringe. And I wonder if this will have an impact on other countries.

ECOWAS has activated its standby force with all its elements immediately to restore "constitutional order" in Niger. War is eminent.

I've also seen tweets like this claiming the Nigerien coupers will kill the neocolonial puppet of a president if ECOWAS sets foot into Niger, but this claim ultimately comes from anonymous US officials. I could not verify this claim that suspiciously gives justification for the invasion.

West is paranoid about BRICS Summit

I'll probably re-post this in the new thread when it goes up on Monday, but worthy of discussion.

Basically, there have been rumors floating around that India is unhappy with the proposed expansion of BRICS and that Modi might not go to the summit in person. The South African foreign minister is in contact with India's and neither of them know what these rumors are talking about, and think that people (the West) are spreading rumors to try and spoil the summit. That, and articles in Bloomberg and others that focus on India and China having interests that are too dissimilar for co-operation. While the animosity between the two countries shouldn't be understated - Modi very obviously has a different vision of the future to Xi - it also shouldn't be overstated (there are areas, like BRICS expansion, where their interests can converge, and Russia is a good man in the middle for them).

In short: America is afraid.

these guys only got fired cause they weren't kicking up to the big guy right?

Germany considers ban on far-right AfD as party surges to 21% in national polls: Telegraph

Put your bets nerds, will do the based or cringe option

apparently the yanks are gonna turn kangaroo island into a mining colony

https://archive.md/aAQ5C

Aug 12 (Reuters) - Ukrainian forces targeted the Crimean Bridge and a number of other unspecified targets on the Crimean peninsula on Saturday in a flurry of rocket and drone attacks, but there were no casualties or damage, Russia's Defence Ministry said.

The FBI and US intel will arrive in Ecuador 🇪🇨 in the coming hours, says Guillermo Lasso.

The US-backed president says he "requested support from the FBI" following yesterday's assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

I don't exactly understand the long-term plan of patsocs like Jackson Hinkle. When I first noticed him around two years ago, his shtick was only "le based Russia support based Trump". Now it has fully evolved to critically supporting countries that any public figure American, Dem or Republican won't even touch with a 10 inch stick because it's so taboo to do so in public. He's openly supporting Iran, Anti-Western coup leaders in Africa and even President Xi and the CPC. Okay he supports random countries because their leadership is homophobic, which Hinkle seems to care about the most, but the horseshoe theory-esque mental gymnastics are interesting to me honestly. Is the imperial American mind rotten enough that you can make it support anti-imperialism by elevating the contrarian elements? What's the play here for someone like Hinkle?

Maui Fires: Lahaina Death Toll Soars To 93, Largest For A US Wildfire In 105 Years

I just saw this and it's pretty cursed.

Question for the libs: which part of an offensive is it when you start marching backwards? Ukraine order evacuation of towns in path of Russian advances

Communist Party of Venezuela Statement

#ALERT We denounce before the Venezuelan people, the Communist and Workers’ Parties, and the genuinely anti-imperialist forces of the world, that the government of Nicolás Maduro has consummated the assault against the Communist Party of Venezuela through an arbitrary judicial sentence that endorses the imposition of a leadership composed of mercenaries at the service of the high government officials of the PSUV.

This Friday #11August, the magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice incurred in an inexcusable error of law by admitting and deciding in favour of a writ of amparo that was promoted out of time by a group of citizens who do not belong to our ranks and therefore do not have any legal qualification to act on behalf of our organization, in violation of the Organic Law of Constitutional Rights and Guarantees.

This procedural fraud, which violates the political rights of the PCV and the Venezuelan working people, not only creates a serious precedent in the political and legal history of the country, but also exposes the authoritarian, anti-democratic and reactionary character of the PSUV-Government, which mistakenly believes that it will subdue the Venezuelan communists with this maneuver.

The National Leadership of the PCV is meeting at this moment, evaluating the legal and political, national and international, actions that it will promote in defense of our right to exist as a Communist Party and to continue fighting for the regrouping of the political, social, workers, peasants and popular forces to conquer a revolutionary solution to the Venezuelan capitalist crisis.

Nobody destroys the Communist Party!

Lathe: North Korea is mobilizing because it is about to send troops to Ukraine in exchange for Russian grain and expects an American response. The force will just be 10k tops, replacing Wagner. America will respond with massive cyber attacks,sabotage Forest fires and a reboot of that videogame in which totally not China super Korea took over America.

That or they will attack the DMZ when Japan decides to reinforce Taiwan, at which point we’ll have about two hours before the end of all things.

Kind of a boring news week up ahead I think. Taking suggestions for the next megathread topic if anybody knows anything particularly interesting going down. If not I'll think of something.

I shagged Dua Lipa at a party once

Tanks are supposed to be short, yeah? Or have we moved away from that design paradigm?

It's election night in Argentina, primaries, and the ancap candidate is set to be "the surprise" (this is not surprising at all, considering liberals and conservatives alike have been pushing his name up like crazy).

Come to Argentina, there are very diverse candidates! We have:

THE FASCIST

THE FASCIST

THE NEOLIBERAL

THE NEOLIBERAL

THE FASCIST

THE TROT

THE FASCIST

And while primaries are.. primaries, they don't often show what the real tendencies are. Still, the ancaps are gaining momentum and it is unknown where they will end in the generals by October. Let us hope a meteor hits this country but miraculously only kills the fascists. Either way, depending on the results, I might ditch this god-forsaken country and move elsewhere. I was offered a home in Spain, which is not perfect because well, fascism, but at least I can make a decent living there and don't have to deal with 100% annual inflation rates and fucking ancaps running the government.

I voted for the Trots, like I always do. As for the election itself it was pretty bad, long lines of people to vote and the system was mixed at least in Buenos Aires -- paper ballot for president and national lower chamber, electronic ballot for city-related government positions, so you kinda voted twice in a day. And the electronic voting machines were not perfect and many people complained about issues, the process was slow and older people struggled.

I'll throw some updates here and there. Death to Fascism.

@Alaskaball@hexbear.net

would you add one more comment to the Russia Ukraine Containment Thread from back when?

I want there to be as many comments as the year it is

Edit:

1000!

Caroline Kennedy Says US Open to Assange Plea Deal

The U.S. ambassador to Australia believes a plea bargain could free imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, allowing him to serve a shortened sentence for a lesser crime in his home country.

Caroline Kennedy told The Sydney Morning Herald in a front-page interview published Monday that the decision on a plea deal was up to the U.S. Justice Department. “So it’s not really a diplomatic issue, but I think that there absolutely could be a resolution,” she told the newspaper.

Kennedy noted the firm comments by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on July 31 in Brisbane that,

“Mr. Assange was charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country. … So I say that only because just as we understand sensitivities here, it’s important that our friends understand sensitivities in the United States.”

Despite Blinken’s strong words, Kennedy said: “But there is a way to resolve it. You can read the [newspapers] just like I can.”

Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s brother, told the Herald: “Caroline Kennedy wouldn’t be saying these things if they didn’t want a way out. The Americans want this off their plate.”

The newspaper said there could be a “David Hicks-style plea bargain,” a so-called Alford Plea, in which Assange would continue to state his innocence while accepting a lesser charge that would allow him to serve additional time in Australia. The four years Assange has already served on remand at London’s maximum security Belmarsh Prison could perhaps be taken into account.

David Hicks was an Australian imprisoned by the United States in Guantanamo for five years. He was ultimately released by the U.S., after pressure from the Australian government, when he agreed to an Alford Plea, in which he pled guilty to a single charge, but was allowed to assert his innocence at the same time on the grounds that he understood he would not receive a fair trial.

Hicks was returned to Australia where he served an additional seven months in prison. His case was then thrown out on appeal when it was established that the charge of giving “material assistance to terrorists” was not yet a crime on the books at the time of his arrest.

The Herald quoted Don Rothwell, an international law expert at Australian National University in Canberra, as saying that Assange would have to travel to the U.S. in order to work out the plea deal.

“Everything we know about Julian Assange suggests this would be a significant sticking point for him,” Rothwell said. “It’s not possible to strike a plea deal outside the relevant jurisdiction except in the most exceptional circumstances.”

However, Bruce Afran, a U.S. constitutional attorney, told Consortium News‘ CN Live! webcast in May that it would indeed be possible for Assange to remain in Britain to work out the deal.

“Usually American courts don’t act unless a defendant is inside that district and shows up to the court,” Afran said. “However, there’s nothing strictly prohibiting it either. And in a given instance, a plea could be taken internationally. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s not barred by any any laws. If all parties consent to it, then the court has jurisdiction.”

Afran said that after seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and four years in Belmarsh, Assange “obviously would have a fear of coming to the U.S. And our prison system is often known for rough treatment in terms of management units and solitary confinement.”

Afran said it was understandable that Assange would not trust the U.S. to follow through on a deal if he went to America. “The U.S. sometimes finds ways to get around these agreements,” Afran said. “The better approach would be that he pleads while in the U.K., we resolve the sentence by either an additional sentence of seven months, such as David Hicks had or a year to be served in the U.K. or in Australia or time served.”

Shipton told the Herald that his brother going to the U.S. was a “non-starter.” He said: “Julian cannot go to the US under any circumstances.”

Afran said Assange would not necessarily have to plead to an espionage or computer intrusion offense. “He could plead simply to mishandling official information or even, in the worst case scenario, conspiracy to mishandle official information, a far lesser charge,” he said.

“That would also resolve the case and probably give the U.S. its satisfaction and would allow Julian essentially to hold his head up high after all these years,” said Afran.

Afran also said that Assange’s side could initiate the plea offer.

On May 22, two days before President Joe Biden was due to visit Australia on a trip he then canceled, Assange lawyer Jennifer Robinson said for the first time on behalf of Assange’s legal team that they would consider a plea deal.

Robinson told the National Press Club in Canberra:

“We are considering all options. The difficulty is our primary position is, of course that the case ought to be dropped. We say no crime has been committed and the facts of the case don’t disclose a crime. So what is it that Julian would be pleading to?”

Assange remains in Belmarsh awaiting a final, 30-minute hearing before the High Court of England Wales, which is on summer recess until Oct. 1. Assange’s lawyers will attempt to reverse a decision by the High Court not to hear his appeal against the home secretary’s extradition order and against most of the lower court’s ruling in his extradition case.

That court in January 2021 ordered Assange released on health grounds and the conditions of U.S. prisons but sided with the U.S. on every other point of law. The U.S. thenwon its appeal before the High Court, which overturned the order to release Assange.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is due to visit President Joe Biden at the White House at the end of October at which time Assange supporters may hope that an arrangement to send Assange to Australia could be finalized.

But the High Court could convene before that. If it rejects Assange’s final appeal, he could be put on a plane to Alexandria, VA where he faces up to 175 years in a U.S. dungeon for publishing accurate information about U.S. war crimes and corruption.

Ecuador's left-wing president candidate Luisa Gonzalez unequivocally condemns the assassination of candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who was killed at a campaign event today, just 11 days ahead of the election.

On the assassination in Ecuador, of candidate Villavincencio from the Real News Network https://youtu.be/RL1wjVELzDs

Looks like Gonzalez, the Correa-ist candidate is facing a lot of right wing accusations that the left assinated him to consolidate the vote. Seems very unlikely or dubious at best. But guy is actually right wing and would probably pull votes to other right wing candidates

so there's probably a theory in Russia that that Malaysian passenger plane in 2014 got shot down by NATO or Ukraine, huh? i bet its pretty wild

its been a long time, what's the consensus on russian culpability for that now?

Ecuador: Zurita to Replace Assassinated Presidential Candidate

This came after Vice Presidential candidate Andrea Gonzalez-Nader was unable to assume the presidential candidacy due to current legal regulations.

On Sunday, the Construye movement decided to appoint journalist Christian Zurita as its presidencial candidate, replacing Fernando Villavicencio, who was assassinated.

This came after Vice Presidential candidate Andrea Gonzalez-Nader was unable to assume the presidential candidacy due to current legal regulations.

"The candidate we have chosen in agreement with Construye is Christian Zurita, a fellow warrior in the struggle alongside Fernando Villavicencio," stated Gonzalez-Nader.

Earlier on Saturday, the Construye movement had chosen Gonzalez-Nader as its presidential candidate. However, such a decision was revoked due to concerns that the National Electoral Council (CNE) might not accept her candidacy since she had already been registered as a vice-presidential candidate.

"We could not allow, under any circumstances, Fernando's absence to fade away after his heinous and vile murder," Zurita expressed during a press conference where he and Gonzalez-Nader wore bulletproof vests and were protected by a heavy police presence.

"His ideas remain entirely intact... We will strive to replicate his capability and honor his name," declared the Ecuadorian journalist who had worked alongside Villavicencio for 15 years.

On Sunday night, the first and only presidential debate prior to the August 20 elections will take place. The Construye movement will not participate in the debate and will leave an empty seat in memory of Villavicencio.

This right-wing politician, who became famous for denouncing links between the police and drug trafficking, was killed by gunmen after a rally held in Quito on Wednesday.

Currently, opinion polls indicate that victory in the upcoming presidential elections is likely to be secured by Luisa Gonzalez, the candidate of the Citizen Revolution (RC), the progressive movement led by former President Rafael Correa (2007-2017).

This Zurita guys seems to be just some random right-wing, liberal journalist.

A giant callout tweet of the Communist Party of Venezuela from Ben Norton. Does anyone have more info about this party and how accurate Norton is in his assessment?

Lib-ass thread about Dmitry Glukhovsky on the orange site https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37113330

Milei wins, Argentina goes into crisis and Chile claims the Patagonia

I have a sonichu shirt. It is wild to just walk around the mall and see people get traumatized. One girl asked me to pose for selfies with her. I am on her Instagram now.

Moon of Alabama seem like a bunch of conservatives. Why do they get so much runtime around here? Foreign policy seems decent but the comments sections suck shit. I don't want to have to deal with these sorts of "well here's why all these conservative stances are actually leftist" guys.

HOW IS LEMMY.ML SO LIB NOW

The tanks must roll, my return is nigh

https://www.intellinews.com/factory-producing-military-equipment-explodes-near-moscow-287500/?source=russia

Sure, it was improper fireworks storage and not industrial sabotage. Highly believable from the Russian state.

I am so glad for Miss PhilosophyTube's big career moments. She got roles in Star wars and The Gambo.

BRICS 2023 Summit to Challenge Western Dominance: South Centre

Its agenda will be topped by efforts toward the reduction of the U.S. dollar's hegemony.

The 15th BRICS summit, to be held in South Africa this month, is expected to make the global governance system fairer and counterbalance the dominance of Western countries, said Carlos Maria Correa, director of the South Centre.

The BRICS group of major emerging economies -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- will hold its 15th heads of state and government summit in Johannesburg between Aug. 22 and Aug. 24. The summit will be the first in-person BRICS gathering since 2020.

Altogether, the BRICS nations account for more than 40 percent of the world population and about 26 percent of the global economy.

"One key issue for the BRICS to consider is global governance. There is a need to change the current system, which is unfair and asymmetric. In particular, the architecture of the financial system needs a major reform," Correa said.

Leaders are also expected to discuss the BRICS group's expansion by adding new members, including the admission criteria and the guiding principles.

BRICS discussing launch of dollar rival – top Russian MP

The five emerging nations already outpace the G7 in economic growth, Aleksandr Babakov claims

"Among my hopes is that the current BRICS group considers the incorporation of other countries. This will be very important because it will give volume to the BRICS," Correa said.

"Of course, major economies, such those of India, Brazil and China, are there, but if other countries can also be incorporated, the political dimension of the BRICS will be improved significantly."

So far, over 20 countries have formally applied to become new BRICS members, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Indonesia, Egypt and Ethiopia.

Correa said although the Group of Seven (G7) and the Group of 20 (G20) still influence a lot the international developments, those groups are dominated by developed countries.

"But the BRICS play an important role in counterbalancing the G7 and G20. They look for solutions that are aligned with the interests of the other developing countries," he said.

Asked how China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has contributed to China-Africa cooperation, Correa said: "There are so many projects that have been realized in the context of this initiative, it is very difficult to highlight just one. The contribution has been immense."

"The creation of infrastructure in African countries has been extremely important, such as new ports, electricity plants and water supply. This is one of the reasons why South-South cooperation has become so important in the last few years," he said.

The Geneva-based South Centre is an intergovernmental organization that helps developing countries to combine efforts to promote their common interests in the international arena.

Before federation I had so much trust in fellow hexbears that I would upvote before reading the comment. Now however, I have to properly read what is being posted before upvoting and this requires more effort. Once again the libs causing me great pain

Ugh. When I was back on Reddit comments like those would always be downvoted to hell.

https://truthout.org/articles/right-wing-troll-andy-ngo-loses-lawsuit-filed-against-portland-activists/

A jury in Portland, Oregon, ruled against conservative provocateur Andy Ngo this week in a civil lawsuit he filed three years ago against local activists over multiple allegations of assault, including an embarrassing incident in 2019 when Ngo was hit in the face with a milkshake during a far right rally and counterprotest.

soo China did NOT do a relevent Airforce incursion into republic of Chinas Airspace , Hexbear on the other hand...

Polish TV said a few minutes ago the government will be deploying 10k troops on the border with Belarus. This is paired with accusations that there's Wagner camps massing on the Polish border there and that Germany is doing Putler's bidding and attempting to rig the Polish election because a CSU politician said some unflattering stuff about PiS.

Also it showed racist propaganda about how western europe has fallen to roaming gangs of black people, attacking events and doing all kinds of evil.

Meanwhile, the libs are doing their usual Poland is bankrupt and literally 1984 shtick, while calling for stuff like abolishing or massively scaling back all welfare state things the fash government created (which is keeping them popular).

This place is a fever dream and it drives me mad. It's like it's specifically designed to torture all my political sensitivities.

Update to the DPRK stuff, I found the original state article on it: http://www.kcna.kp/en/article/q/22ff0f87ad0a9b4107603f1b63e642cb.kcmsf

They are preparing for offensive operations, it openly discusses a move towards the capability for a pre-emptive strike.

We are in the build up to world war 3, unless people think that the west would relinquish the south.

activity is popping off

Russians troops are closing in on Kupiansk. Would be quite funny if Russia captures the first mid-sized town before Ukraine despite the Ukrainian counter-offensive. Looks like it's soon time for the Russian Kharkov Civil Administration folks to go back to work after chilling since Russia lost all these areas back in September 2022

Ecuador’s National Electoral Council declares that the presidential elections will not be suspended.

Well, shit. They killed Fernando Villavicencio, a liberal politician and presidential candidate in Ecuador, literally a day after I posted about the election polls here. I doubt this will have a big effect on the election, but it shows how bad Ecuador is with the neoliberal government. The assassinations of politicians also happened during the 2023 municipal elections (the one where Lasso not only lost all the main cities to Correa's party and some liberals, but also his entire constitutional changes referendum).

Document leak confirms that Imran Khan, former PM of Pakistan, was removed at the request of the US State Department

Los Lobos Gang Denies Responsibility for Villavicencio's Murder

"Other criminal groups want to destabilize the country and hold us responsible for the tragedy that Ecuador is going through," the Wolves spokesperson said.

On Thursday, the Wolves gang (Los Lobos) denied having assassinated presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio on Wednesday afternoon in Quito, the capital of Ecuador.

Previously, social networks circulated a video in which hooded men carrying weapons swore to be "the Wolves" and claimed to be the perpetrators of the murder of Villavicencio.

These men said that the presidential candidate was assassinated for failing to fulfill his promises after receiving money for his electoral campaign.

The alleged assassins also launched threats against another presidential candidate Jan Topic, whom they also accused of receiving money from organized crime.

All these affirmations, however, were denied today through a video made by a group of people who proclaimed themselves to be members of the authentic Los Lobos gang.

"Ecuador, don't be fooled. We are the organized crime group The Wolves. We don't cover our faces. Nobody speaks for us and we do keep peace," says a man who appears surrounded by other gang members dressed in white.

"We make it clear that we have never assassinated government or civilian people. We clarify that the video circulating on social networks, in which he appears in a group of people with their faces covered and assault rifles posing as members of our organization, It's totally false."

"This makes it clear that other criminal groups want to destabilize the country and hold us responsible for the tragedy that Ecuador is going through right now," the Wolves spokesperson said.

"We ask that the authorities investigate and find those truly responsible. Do not be fooled by people who make videos, covering their faces so as not to assume responsibility for their actions, which threaten the State security."

UKR is evacuating an unspecified 'key' town in Kharkov region due to RUS advance RT reports

https://www.rt.com/russia/581098-ukraine-orders-evacuation-key-town/

c/news is the 11th most subbed comm in lemmyverse

russia experimenting with islamic banks that aren't allowed to charge interest and aren't allowed to finance 'uncertain transactions' (speculation?), gambling, pork, or alcohol

not sure what loophole if any shariah law allows for the banks in place of charging interest but nonetheless

I have a new peace plan:

Putin calls Kylian Mbappe (who won the world cup in Russia) and convinces him to stay at PSG, in return Macron and the Qataris arrange a meeting between US and Russian representatives where the final goal is to turn western Ukraine into a large football pitch where the Saudis will host the worldcup. Alcohol, drugs and gay sex will be permitted so there won't be any moral dilemmas and the US will get to have their corporations sponsoring the whole thing.

Next thread here.

@TomboyShulk
@DuckNuckem
@SapGreen
@Zangief
@scumlord
@COMMENT
@Antisocial_Socialist
@DOPESMOKERDENG

I fucking hate the USA

Surprise surprise, the coup forces in Niger have widespread popular support.

A key consideration for ECOWAS must surely be whether foreign troops would be welcomed or opposed by Nigeriens themselves. Canvassing by Premise Data, a polling firm, for The Economist in the first survey conducted since the coup found that 78% of respondents support the actions of the junta and that 73% think it should stay in power “for an extended period” or “until new elections are held”. A slim majority of 54% said they were not in favour of an intervention by regional or international organisations. Of those supporting foreign intervention, an alarming 50% said they preferred it to be by Russia, presumably because they think it would support the putschists, as Wagner has done in Mali. Just 16% chose America, 14% the African Union and a paltry 4% preferred ecowas. These findings are not representative of opinion across the country because the poll was conducted quickly with a small sample. In this survey most of the respondents were relatively well-educated men and 62% were in the capital. Even so, the poll provides an indicative snapshot of the prevailing mood.

https://archive.is/KE5Yf

bit idea: calling anyone talking about Russian attacks on civilians a kremlin shill because "everyone knows Russian missiles can't penetrate Ukraine's air defenses"

The summer federation counter-offensive has begun.

https://archive.ph/IEqJ5

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) Is still blocking appointments to high military positions over the DOD allowing abortions. Here's last time I mentioned this exact thing and lmao I can't believe he's still blocking it a month later and the libs are still whining about rules and norms not being followed

Update for August 7th

expand

Global

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Prices for cocoa have jumped to their highest level in 12 years due to low supplies and bad harvests in West Africa, particularly as El Nino threatens to reduce rains there.^RT

China is increasingly moving away from large-scale construction projects in the BRI and is now moving onto high quality, smaller deals, and ones to do with metals in developing countries for the green transition.^SCMP

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Europe

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The UK is getting very scared that Chinese electric vehicles could gather their information to... uhh... well, that's not the point, the point is that the Chinese government is very scary and very communist. The fact that they carry around a phone that gives all their location and personal data to their own government and listens in on their conversations and UK citizens are monitored by one of the largest CCTV networks in the world outside of China is causing them less anxiety for whatever reason.^RT 8000 Afghan refugees are being kicked out of government hotels, with three months to find alternative housing, with many becoming homeless.^AM

Germany's industrial output^AM is still not looking good.^DW Die Linke may be about to split - people more attuned to German politics can comment on how right or wrong this Jacobin article is^Jacobin Nazi symbols and child pornography has been found in German police chats.^EN The French government has warned that AfD is perilous for European stability.^Euractiv

Over 600 people have been evacuated due to wildfires in Sardinia.^EN

Slovenia's flooding has been described as the worst disaster in its modern history, with at least four deaths, over 500 million euros of damage so far, and two-thirds of the country being affected in one way or another.^EN

Baltic countries are looking to detach from the Russian electricity network and attach to the Western one by 2025.^RT

Lithuania is to close two border crossings with Belarus due to their fear of Wagner.^AM

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Western Asia

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The Road That Could Ignite a War in the Caucasus^NC

An explosion - possible caused by grain dust - at the port of Derince in Turkiye has injured at least 10 people.^RT

The US has dispatched 3000 military personnel aboard two warships to the Red Sea, due to recent tanker seizures by Iran, without mentioning that the US has also been seizing tankers.^AM The US is also considering to deploy troops to commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf.^MEE

Saudi Aramco's profits are down by nearly 30% in the first half of 2023.^AM China and Saudi Arabia are in talks to cross-list their stock markets, allowing investors in either country to trade stocks or bonds on their countries' stock exchanges.^MEE

China's potential role in Israel-Saudi diplomacy is discussed.^SCMP

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Central Asia

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The ruble has weakened to 96 rubles-per-dollar due to seasonal changes in foreign currency supply and trade, but also due to the goddamn neoliberals.^RT The domestic car market has dramatically improved since last year.^RT Truck drivers are in ever shorter supply, growing from a 15% shortage to a 21% shortage in the last five years.^RT Russian universities are increasingly partnering with Chinese peers as the war heightens tensions with their western peers.^SCMP

A train crash in Pakistan has killed at least 30 people and injured over 100.^PD The Pakistan industrial manufacturing sector, based largely on textiles, is in a critical condition - 25 to 30% of all textile factories have closed and 700,000 jobs have been lost in the last year or so.^DS

Kazakhstan has signed $200 million in contracts with Afghanistan.^EN

---

Eastern Asia and Oceania

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China is building the highest bridge in the world across the Huajiang river, set to finish construction in 2025. It will reduce transit times across the canyon from 70 minutes to 1 minute.^CGTN China is also building the world's largest span road-rail bridge, 3118 meters long with a designed train speed of 250 km/h, in Zhejiang province.^CGTN Foreign envoys from a variety of countries have concluded their visits to Xinjiang at the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with no forced labor or human rights violations seen, and with compliments to Chinese development projects.^CGTN China is leading the company count on the Fortune Global 500 list again, including those in Taiwan.^ANN

Modi has launched a program to modernize India's railways, two months after nearly 300 people were killed in a rail accident.^RT As India, Thailand, and Vietnam limit rice exports, food markets might get a bit chaotic in the near-to-mid future.^MP

The DPRK remains unresponsive to the US's pleas to bring Travis King home.^ANN A group of hackers secretly breached networks at a major Russian missile developer for at least five months last year, but is unknown what - or even, if - they stole anything. The release of this news is obviously timed for the Russian visit to the DPRK.^Euractiv

Bangladesh inflation has slowed down slightly, but the cost of living crisis continues.^ANN

Timor Leste will reconsider its accession bid to ASEAN if the bloc cannot handle the Myanmar issue, saying that they cannot accept military juntas anywhere.^ANN

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Africa

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Russian energy company RusHydro is considering 15 projects in 11 African countries, including geothermal energy and the water structures for nuclear power plants.^RT

Mali and Burkina Faso have sent a delegation to Niger to show solidarity.^AN Malian soldiers were killed in a very conveniently timed jihadist ambush while heading to Niger.^AN Niger has shut down its airspace and warns of an imminent attack as ECOWAS's one week deadline for the military government to reinstate Bazoum comes and goes.^AN Benin has pledged support for a potential ECOWAS mission into Niger.^AN The Niger coup is not good news for Italy's Mattei plan, which seeks to reinforce energy partnerships with African partners.^Euractiv

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North America

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Naked Capitalism looks at the current US economy (and how that affects Biden's chances in 2024).^NC

A state district judge in Texas issued a temporary injuction against an abortion ban in the case of unsafe pregnacies; the Texas Supreme Court instantly blocked the injuction by filing an appeal.^SP

Jacobin takes a bold stand by saying that Donald Trump being prosecured for his crimes is good, actually.^Jacobin

The UAW leader has demanded wage hikes and an end to two-tier wages, citing large profits by GM, Stellantis, and Ford.^PW

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Latin America

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An article that covers the recent history of Nicaragua since the 2018 coup attempt.^MR

Maduro has criticized the European response, or lack thereof, to the burning of the Quran, and has expressed his solidarity with Muslims worldwide.^AM America's long-running plan to steal Venezuela's oil company, CITGO, which provided oil at a discount to countries in the Caribbean and allowed Venezuela to provide healthcare to its citizenry, will reach completion in October.^MR Lula has signed a decree that guarantees the purchase of energy from Venezuela.^TS

China's ambassador to Argentina has once again expressed support for the Argentine government's claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, as well as expressing support for Argentina to join BRICS.^MP Argentina has paid the IMF with a loan from Qatar.^MP

---

Remember to upbear the news mega now so that libs on other instances have to see it.

It seems like the current plan is to have ECOWAS hold economic sanctions against Niger while moderate rebels destabilize the country.

ECOWAS walking back militarily but still continuing sanctions: https://nitter.cz/african_stream/status/1689297857126289409

A French military aircraft breaching Niger airspace from Chad: https://nitter.cz/Nath_Yamb/status/1689303548436045824

Some org that is absolutely not financially and militarily backed by the West wants to restore the neocolonial puppet no one like: https://nitter.cz/casusbellii/status/1689014168945324032

More lady spy news dropped

Ukraine says it busted an all-female spy ring who fed crucial military intelligence to Russia and the Wagner Group

spoiler

Counterintelligence officers have unmasked an all-female ring of spies who were aiding Russia's invasion with military intelligence, Ukraine's Security Service announced on Tuesday.

The group, based in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, passed information on to both the FSB — Russia's main spy agency — and the mercenary Wagner Group, according to the announcement.

The Ukrainian security agency, known as the SBU, said that Russia recruited the women before last year's full-scale invasion began, adding that they had been on "standby" until recently. Their identities have not been made public.

The SBU said that while three of the women remained in their hometown of Pokrovsk, northwest of the city of Donetsk, the fourth moved to Russia to coordinate their activities and is still at large.

The agency said the three women in Pokrovsk were caught as they went about their reconnaissance, covertly snapping photos of Ukrainian facilities and targets.

It claims that the women had been using a secure-chat app to inform Russia about the numbers and movements of troops and vehicles in the region. The SBU said they paid particular attention to attack helicopters, combat planes, and heavy armored vehicles.

The intelligence agency published text messages purporting to have been exchanged between the women, with most of the specifics blurred out.

Insider was unable to independently verify the claims, and it is unclear if the women have admitted or denied the accusations, which amount to high treason. They could face life imprisonment if found guilty, according to the announcement.

The news comes a day after the SBU said it had uncovered a plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The agency said it had arrested a female informant who passed along vital information on the leader's movements during a visit to the Mykolaiv region, in the south of Ukraine, to launch an airstrike there.

The agency said that the SBU gaining advanced knowledge and enacting extra security measures purportedly foiled the plan.

It is unclear if the woman arrested was a part of the alleged spy ring.

The 25 Largest U.S. Banks Are Seeing the Largest Fall in Deposits in 38 Years With No Signs of Letting Up

Deposits at the 25-largest domestically-chartered U.S. commercial banks peaked at $11.680 trillion on April 13, 2022, according to the updated H.8 data maintained at the Federal Reserve Economic Database (FRED). As of the most current H.8 data for the week ending on Wednesday, July 26, 2023, deposits stood at $10.709 trillion at those 25 commercial banks, a dollar decline of $970 billion and a percentage decline of 8.3 percent.

Equally noteworthy, the decline shows no signs of letting up. According to the FRED data, between July 5 and the most current reading on July 26, the 25 largest U.S. banks shed $174 billion in deposits.

Despite all of the misleading news reports about depositors seeking out the perceived safety of the largest banks since the banking crisis in the spring, it’s actually been the smaller banks that have staged a comeback on growing deposits since the week of April 26. (See chart above.)

Patrick Lancaster, the man with balls so big he runs funny, out with some folk flying one way drones. 💥 💥 💥

the way Bahamians talk about haitians is ridiculous. like fuck refugees deport the illegal immigrants bullshit. the family member I was talking was literally an illegal immigrant for years.

https://archive.is/PseNi

U.S army to ramp up artillery shell production to 1 million shells per year by 2025.

120+ upvotes, the lemmyverse is loving the news megathread

Just occurred to me that instability or armed conflict in Niger will also worsen the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean.

For all that western countries love to say they don't want people coming there, they sure love to create the conditions that force people to.

Bhadrakumar's take on the events in Niger are pretty much in line with our own.

It's worth noting the Russia-Africa summit (as we barely discussed it):

First, the big picture — the Africa summit hosted by Russia on July 27-28 poses a big challenge to the West, which instinctively sought to downplay the event after having failed to lobby against sovereign African nations meeting the Russian leadership. 49 African countries sent their delegations to St. Petersburg, with seventeen heads of states traveling in person to Russia to discuss political, humanitarian and economic issues. For the host country, which is in the middle of a war, this was a remarkable diplomatic success.

The summit was quintessentially a political event. Its leitmotif was the juxtaposition of Russia’s long-standing support for Africans resisting imperialism and the predatory nature of western neo-colonialism. This works brilliantly for Russia today, which has no colonial history of exploitation and plunder of Africa. While every now and then skeletons from the colonial era keep rolling out of the Western closet, dating back to the unlamented African slave trade, Russia taps into the Soviet legacy of being on the ‘right side of history’ — even resurrecting the full name of Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia in Moscow.

Yet, it wasn’t all politics. The summit deliberations on Russia-Africa partnership helping the continent achieve ‘‘food sovereignty,’’ alternatives to the grain deal, new logistics corridors for Russian food and fertilisers; enhancement of trade, economic, cultural, educational, scientific, and security cooperation; Africa potentially joining the International North–South Transport Corridor; Russia’s participation in African infrastructure projects; Russia-Africa Partnership Forum Action Plan to 2026 — these testify to the quantifiable outcome.

He goes over Niger, France, ECOWAS. He predicts that there will be no military intervention by Nigeria:

The ECOWAS simply does not have a mechanism for the rapid gathering of troops and the coordination of hostilities, and its powerhouse Nigeria has its hands full tackling internal security. The Nigerian public opinion feels wary about a blowback — Niger is a large country and has a 1500-kilometre long porous border with Nigeria. An unspoken truth is, Nigeria is hardly interested in increasing the French military presence in Niger or on being on the same side with France, which is extremely unpopular throughout the Sahel.

I think the point to take home is this:

At its core, without doubt, the coup in Niger Republic narrows down to a struggle between Nigeriens and the colonial powers. To be sure, the growing trend of multipolarity in the world order emboldens African nations to shake off neo-colonialism. This is one thing. On the other hand, the big powers are being compelled to negotiate rather than dictate. Interestingly, Washington has been relatively restrained. President Biden’s espousal of ‘’values’’ fell far short of the diktat on ‘‘rules-based order’’ — although America reportedly has 3 military bases in Niger. In the multipolar setting, African nations are gaining space to negotiate. Russia’s pro activism will spur this process. China also has economic stakes in in Niger. Notably, the coup leader Abdurahman Tchiani is on record that “the French have no objective reasons to leave Niger,” signalling that a fair and equitable relationship is possible.

The following is quite a funny quote given Russia's own actions lately. Comparing a potential Nigerian invasion into Niger and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is apples and oranges given the historical context of NATO's military march towards Russia's borders (or, as libs would see it, Russia putting their bases and cities closer and closer to our troops), but still a funny quote in a vacuum:

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said, ‘‘We consider it an urgent task to organise a national dialogue to restore civil peace, ensure law and order… we believe that the threat of the use of force against a sovereign state will not contribute to defusing tensions and resolving the situation in the country,”

At the end, he mentions Nuland's visit and concludes that she was really there to try and stop Wagner from getting more involved, but was unsuccessful.

da bear is back

The first mega after federating. Get ready everyone.

CW: transphobia

Florida School District Bans Trans Employees From Using Their Pronouns

As a result of the state’s ‘don’t say gay’ law, a large Florida school district sent out a document on Monday forbidding transgender employees from using their preferred pronouns and forcing them to use group restrooms based on their “biological sex at birth.” Additionally, simply calling a student by a nickname now requires written permission, according to the district. While the pronoun guidance also applies to students, it imposes stiff penalties on faculty and staff who violate it.

A student at one of these schools accidentally calls his 9 year old friend Michael "Mike" on school premises and gets dragged out of the classroom by a heavily armed genital inspection officer.

Absolute fucking morons.

Ha, bet you losers thought I'd go out and touch grass. Guess again! I will never log off

Mexico will not be joining the BRICS bloc of countries, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said during his daily morning news conference on Tuesday.

“We are not going to participate in this bloc, in this association. Of course, we celebrate that other countries do. However, for reasons of proximity, geopolitics, we will continue strengthening the alliance with North America and the whole of the Americas,” Obrador was cited as saying by La Prensa Latina news outlet.

...

“Our program is to bolster the treaty with the United States and Canada, for us to consolidate as a region… We are going to pursue the integration of the entire Americas in the medium- and long-term, but we will change old policies that have not worked and in addition, convince the political class, above all in the United States, of the importance of Latin America,” he stated.

I get why he's doing it, due to all the trade, but my brother in christ, you have spent the last few months railing against the United States as politicians there try to rev up consent to sending American troops into your country.

Russia might now be the world's fifth largest economy by GDP PPP, overtaking Germany. Estimates of GDP PPP can vary between organizations and governments so it's not a sure thing yet but it's plausible given each country's trajectories. The sanctions have worked great - against Europe.

Put the latest deprogram episode on for a bit and I didn't fully comprehend that the Ukrainian Privitization is just literally happening in the open on a website.

Like this is a now defunct distillery, so I'm guessing you'd just get the property but still it's wild this is just in the open. I really expected it to be done through more backroom deals (I'm sure some of it still is)

Note to self: 724160 days is 1984 years.

Any economics knowers want to shed some light on the current situation with the Ruble? Is it a big deal that it's losing so much value? What caused this?

Victoria Fucking Nuland is in Niger right now

God I fucking hate her so much that even thinking of that devil makes my blood boil

Musk is such a pussy. He literally backed out from the Zuck Deathmatch twice lol.

Candidate in Ecuador's presidential election has been shot dead
Be warned that there is footage of the assassination on Twitter

she slava on my ukraini till i zelenskeet

first federated news thread, lets goo

NATO training leaves Ukrainian troops ‘underprepared’ for war

Ukrainian soldiers are being left underprepared for the realities of Russia’s war because of a disconnect between NATO and domestic military training, according to one frontline brigade.

So far, more than 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers have taken part in military training in the West. Yet NATO can only currently offer Ukrainian soldiers basic training, shifting the burden of vital combat training back to Ukraine. Time constraints mean that stage two training doesn’t always happen, or happen in full, in Ukraine or the West.

“I don’t want to say anything against our partners, but they don’t quite understand our situation and how we are fighting,” said a senior intelligence sergeant in the newly formed 41st Mechanised Brigade who goes by the name ‘Dutchman’. “That’s why the main training and the integrated training happens here.”

Nick Reynolds, an expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK defence think tank, said that the West’s current training for the Ukrainian military is less realistic, but safer and simpler. He admits that this approach shifts the risk from things going wrong at the training stage to things going wrong during live operations.

...

Members of the 41st Brigade said that their instructors often used examples of NATO operations in the Middle East, where the objective is to clear houses and identify potential insurgents among the local population, but “that’s not really relevant to us”.

“For the most part, [Western instructors] have fought wars in cities and towns – urban settings. We are on flat ground a lot of the time,” said Dutchman. The tactics that Ukrainian officers and commanders badly want their troops to learn while being trained abroad are either only part of the syllabus or not featured at all.

“The [Western] training was good and interesting. But there was very little about de-mining,” Yura said. They showed us a minefield about two metres wide. The training lasted about two hours. But you get here and look at what’s in front of you, it’s just not comparable.”

what the fuck?

Another major difference, argued Dutchman, who has attended several Western training courses in the UK and Germany, is in planning. Referring to the fact that NATO forces usually outgun (and overpower) their enemies, he said that Western instructors plan “with a weaker enemy in mind”.

This is all somehow even worse than I imagined it going, and I expected disaster right from the start. Literally getting fucking anti-insurgent house-clearing training for a month when it should be a year or two, being shown how to navigate a 6-foot wide minefield, and then being funneled off back to Ukraine to die in artillery barrages. These people are complicit in the murder of these soldiers.

any military instructors in NATO can't fight. all they know is assuming air superiority, getting ambushed by terrorists, clear houses, die in minefields, kill brown children, eat hot chip and lie

Ukrainian tank goes for a swim

Ukrainian excuses:

-The winter cold ✅

-The spring mud ✅

-The fucking grass... I mean, excuse me, summer vegetation ✅

-The fucking river just sitting there... I mean sorry again I meant clearly the unusual high water level at the Dnieper river.

Convinced that Wagner is going to get credited almost entirely for the Nigerian army failing in the coming invasion and it's going to elevate them to a near mythical status internationally.

Just finished Liu Cixin's 'The Three Body Problem' where Venezuela defeats the USA in a guerrilla war. It got me thinking that if I took 100 seasoned RF off the front line and put them on one side of a field with 10 artillery pcs and I took 100 USA military and put them on the other side of the field with the same 10 guns and ammo the RF would eat USA for dinner and poop little pcs of them the next morning. The same is probably true for the Ukies. Ukrainians would have their guns ready and drone swarms in the air locking in coords before the Americans knew what hit them. When the Russians are being honest they admit Ukrainians hit hard. Get lazy for a minute, sit on top of a trench and smoke a cig and a Ukrainian sniper will give you a lobotomy. Launch mortars from the same spot for too long and they will hit you with artillery rounds. Use whatsapp to say Hi Mom and himars soon to follow. In a real war the US would face a huge learning curve.