Geopolitics

Cross posted from https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/46645870

Military analyst Andrei Martyanov joins former CIA analyst Larry Johnson to examine Russia’s battlefield advances, the transformation of drone warfare and command systems, the widening industrial gap with the United States and what the next five months could bring for Ukraine and NATO.

North Korean operatives are using stolen identities, AI and American accomplices to land jobs at U.S. companies, funneling millions back to the regime.⁠ ⁠ WSJ’s yearlong investigation reveals how one team infiltrated eight companies in just a few months.⁠

In this second installment of the series Andy Boreham’s RED CHINA, I take you on an immersive journey through Jinggangshan, the misty mountain stronghold on the Jiangxi-Hunan border famously known as the Cradle of the Chinese Revolution.

WATCH PART ONE HERE: • Shanghai: The Surprising Birthplace of the...

After the failure of urban uprisings in 1927 (see part one, link above), a small band of exhausted revolutionaries retreated into these rugged peaks and dense bamboo forests. Here they established China’s first rural revolutionary base, eventually controlling surrounding counties and supporting half a million people at its peak.

The episode follows Mao’s exact path, visiting key sites including the Octagonal Building—where he wrote lasting party strategies under oil-lamp light—and the former Fourth Red Army headquarters in Ciping.

I experience life as a Red Army soldier: carrying heavy loads up steep trails, attending political classes, and tasting classic dishes like pumpkin soup. Dramatic history comes alive at Huangyangjie, where just 500 defenders held off 5,000 enemy troops using terrain, bamboo spikes, and sheer will.

This episode also explores the land revolution that redistributed farmland to peasants, turning ordinary villagers into the backbone of the movement.

Today, red tourism drives over half of Jinggangshan’s economy, drawing millions who walk the same trails, stay in revolutionary homestays, and keep the Jinggangshan spirit alive.

As Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali nationalize billions in gold wealth and post record economic growth, neighboring Ghana hosts the US military. Kwesi Pratt Jnr., general secretary of the Socialist Movement of Ghana, joins Zoe Alexandra and Rania Khalek to break down why the Sahel's "patriotic revolution" is a critical first step toward African liberation — and why real transformation demands something much more: “resetting the world” entirely at the UN, the IMF, World Bank, and WTO.

While Burkina Faso's Ibrahim Traoré has inspired the Global South, and Ghana's John Mahama has brought global attention to reparations at the United Nations, Pratt argues that true revolutions are led by the working class, not politicians. And from the assassination of Patrice Lumumba to present-day terrorism targeting the Sahel states, Western intelligence agencies have a long history of destabilizing Africa's liberation movements — a tradition Pratt says Ukraine now seems eager to join.

The real reason for everything - surveillance, crackdown, border control, geopolitical instability. Support my independent work: www.patreon.com/thehatedone

The men above you convinced you that it is necessary to put up a mass surveillance state for your protection – surveillance not even you can escape from. Why do you think that is?

Step inside your car and every mile you take will be tracked with precision and tied to your identity. Step outside and escape to the woods? Tens of thousands of disguised motion-triggered cameras will follow your every step. Wanna hit the gym to get into shape? Government spies will buy your data and location from your fitness tracker. What do you think they need all that data for?

Go ahead, turn off location services on your phone. See what it does. Unless you are in airplane mode, your phone's location will be tracked by whoever made your phone and also whoever is providing telecommunications services in your area. This data is not considered yours nor private and so is retained indefinitely and shared with impunity.

Cameras are no longer just passively recording the streets. They are actively monitored by AI to identify and track in real time just about anyone it chooses for a target. No particular target in sight? Never mind. Behavioral AI analysis will find and identify an angry commuter who just missed their train and will alert nearby enforcement units because of 'suspicious behavior'.

An enforcement officer has access to so much surveillance power they can just point a camera at your face and immediately get your name, where you live or where you work. A camera that's on an enforcer's phone or increasingly more so – their AI glasses. You laughed when this was coming in China. Now you are meant to cheer for it.

And that was the whole point. To gradually get you to a point of inescapable mass surveillance that can target anyone and everyone and you wouldn't even put up a protest. Not only will you not protest this. You are told to gleefully cheer for the men in power who did this to you. Men in power you are told to worship are the same men who'll send you or your son to another war while they make fortunes from the chaos your family will get to bear.

Why do you think the mass surveillance system of absolute power never went away? First, they told you it was to fight against terrorism. They didn't define what terrorism was. They never acknowledged they were participating it. The mass surveillance didn't expire. No, it was expanded still. They just moved from terror to drug enforcement. Then to enforce immigration policies. Then to protect the children. Now anything that is scandalous or can fall under the vague umbrella of 'national security' is used to justify what was supposed to be a temporary limit on your freedoms.

Now they are getting you used to military-looking men roaming the streets with the power to legally destroy you and surveillance states to make sure they can. The powerful men above you convinced you to believe they are doing this to protect you from other men they told you to hate. But they forgot to mention that the same power to enforce something you may like can be used to enforce something you don't like. So that you don't get the wrong idea, that maybe no one man should have all that power.

Because they fed you this illusion that maybe you could be the führer's favorite. So that you wouldn't end up at other side of his barrel. But to him, you are just a resource. A resource to be converted for something of greater value to him than your life.

And this is why they are doing this to you. The Chinese government has been doing it. The Russian government has been doing it. Therefore, your government must also be doing it if they want to stand a chance on the world scene. It's a system of geopolitical adaptation. The bridge between your personal life and geopolitics has been crossed. To all of them, their citizens are resources to play the game of politics with. Those that know their numbers better have a higher chance of succeeding.

After 4.5 years of Proxy-War something is breaking: When the cracks in the pro-war narrative get so large that even Neocons have to admit the empire is running out of munition, an inflection point has been reached. And we have seen this before. What David Gibbs calls the "Vietnam Moment" is not far away anymore.

In this talk, professor David Gibbs of the University of Arizona discusses his trip to the Baltics, arguing that anti-Russian feeling is widespread and that Russian-speaking minorities face exclusion. He and Pascal Lottaz compare Western messaging on Ukraine with Vietnam, debate the political costs of a setback, and discuss how culture-war language can be used to support military intervention.

Cross posted from https://sopuli.xyz/post/50016299

Sherman said more experienced Jewish activists told him he would not be allowed to enter Israel again unless he immigrated there permanently.

“If I’m the wrong kind of Jew for Israel,” he said sarcastically, “sure. Great.”

Israeli authorities did not provide an explanation for canceling the travel permits of the American Jewish activists.

also see https://www.commondreams.org/news/jewish-activists-status-revoked-israel

Cameron Kasky, a Jewish American activist who was recently detained by armed settlers in the West Bank while visiting with US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), said Israel’s treatment of Jews who show solidarity with Palestinians calls into question its purported commitment to Jewish safety.

“Israeli-occupied territory is not a ‘safe place’ for all Jews,” Kasky said. “Jewish American, Israeli, and European activists are frequently brutalized by Jewish settlers and soldiers.”

Cross posted from https://thelemmy.club/post/54015049

Cross posted from https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/73471540

Wall Street and the mainstream media are completely HIDING the biggest financial timebomb in modern history.

Japan is drowning in a catastrophic debt trap, and Tokyo is preparing to pull the plug. They are quietly dusting off the "1946 Option"—a brutal, state-sponsored financial reset that includes frozen bank accounts, forced currency swaps, and massive wealth taxes.

The worst part? Japan's massive holdings of U.S. Treasuries act as a global suicide vest. When their system breaks, it takes the rest of the world with it. As Japanese citizens scramble to leak their capital into foreign assets, the soft default is failing, and the global elites are PANICKING. The U.S. and Canadian middle classes are standing directly in the blast radius of this historic wealth destruction.

This isn't mechanical market plumbing. This isn't a theory. This is a mathematical inevitability. The End Game is here.

Watch before the financial establishment wipes out your savings. Drop a comment below, hit that LIKE button, and SUBSCRIBE for the unvarnished truth the mainstream won't touch.

An estimated 60,000 people from Morocco crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, on the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar, in an unprecedented mass movement last week. At least 72 people died during the attempt. The sudden influx of migrants overwhelmed the city's residents, leading to a humanitarian crisis while border police deployed water cannons, tear gas and warning shots to deter people from crossing. According to Spain's Interior Ministry, nearly all of the migrants returned to Morocco just a day later.

Miriyam Aouragh, an anthropologist and the daughter of Moroccan immigrants to Europe, says the driving factors for the mass movement are a combination of shifting entry policies to Spain and increasing economic inequality in Morocco that "has given a sort of empowering incentive to people to try to go to Spain" via Ceuta. The city, which is surrounded by Morocco along a five-mile-long border, dates back to the Phoenician era and has been under Portuguese or Spanish control since 1415. The Moroccan government claims that Ceuta is occupied and colonized territory, while Spain considers it an integral part of the Spanish state.

Abdul Al-Sayed is the new Messiah of the Graham Platner left, who are sure that they haven't made the wrong choice to follow him this time, unlike the other 50 times. He's an avowed capitalist, anti-socialist, and Zionist, with rental properties in Dubai. Here I discuss this ridiculousness.

From Donald Trump to Nigel Farage, the far right reacted exactly how you would think – by stirring up fear about a fake “invasion” and weaponizing the so-called crisis to rally their bases.

Cross posted from https://lemmy.zip/post/69166033

Japan has just unveiled major policy overhauls and draft guidelines to significantly tighten its immigration control, permanent residency, and residency management rules. The proposed changes enforce stricter financial, social, and integration benchmarks aimed at curbing public assistance dependency and ensuring compliance. These are the key parts:

■Income Threshold: Applicants must prove household income consistently matches or exceeds the average level for Japanese households.

■Pension Benchmark: Projected pension benefits must align with 30 years of contributions to the corporate employee pension system (kosei nenkin), or be offset by equivalent financial assets.

■Spouse Visa Timelines: The required duration of marriage and continuous residence for spouses of Japanese nationals or permanent residents is proposed to increase from 3 years of marriage / 1 year of residence to 5 years of marriage / 3 years of residence.

■Language & Rules: Applicants must demonstrate functional Japanese language proficiency (independent user level) and understanding of local laws.

■Revocation Risks: Draft rules move toward allowing authorities to revoke permanent residency status for individuals who intentionally and repeatedly fail to pay taxes or social insurance premiums.

■Implementation: The guidelines are planned to take effect starting April 2027.

Morocco has broken its silence on the deadly Ceuta and Melilla border crossings, rejecting claims the migrant surge was spontaneous. The statement comes amid competing narratives over the crisis. While some regional leaders have linked the events to broader geopolitical tensions involving Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, Morocco's Interior Ministry blamed trafficking networks, misleading information, legal misunderstandings and Spanish court decisions.

Vice President JD Vance spent 21 gruelling hours negotiating with Iranian officials in a high-stakes attempt to end the ongoing Iran War. The result? A Memorandum of Understanding so vague that both sides walked away claiming victory, yet agreeing to nothing.

As the world watches, both nations remain locked in a stalemate with rigid "bright red lines." The U.S. demands a guarantee against nuclear weapons and a permanently open Hormuz Strait, while Iran is calling for total sanctions relief, war reparations, and continued control over its nuclear assets.

Joining Piers Morgan to navigate this diplomatic minefield is Doron Spielman, the newly appointed international spokesman for Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Professor Mohammed Marandi and lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

Uncensored tackles the tough questions: Can this administration steer us away from a war that is draining U.S. munitions, inflating global gas prices, and shattering crucial alliances? Is peace even possible, or are we witnessing the inevitable escalation of a conflict that no one can control?

Cross posted from https://lemmy.ca/post/68743161

Why did the United States want Muammar Gaddafi gone?

For over four decades, Gaddafi ruled Libya with a strong and controversial hand, positioning himself as a revolutionary leader in Africa and the Arab world. But his relationship with Western powers, especially the United States, was complex and often hostile.

This documentary explores the hidden geopolitical interests, oil politics, and international power struggles that led to Libya’s collapse and Gaddafi’s downfall. Was it really about democracy and human rights—or something deeper?

Discover the untold story behind one of the most dramatic regime changes in modern history. #Gaddafi

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega aims to exclude “traitors” and “coup-plotting” opposition members from elections, while also seeking to extend the presidential term from six to seven “renewable” years, according to a draft constitutional reform sent to Congress.

US President Donald Trump has again signalled support for selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkiye, brushing aside Israeli objections. The potential deal remains blocked by US legal restrictions after Ankara’s purchase of Russian air defence systems, while Israel argues the sale would undermine its military advantage in the region.

It is incredibly painful for us to think they will take our children away as though they were garbage

My daughter lived there, on the sixth floor, and all those concrete slabs are piled on top of each other. We have been here for 11 days. With no hope. Look, look at how thick those slabs are. Do you think four or even ten men can move that? The longer they take, the more likely it is that people who are still alive may be dieing down there.

But the commander is not the only person who matters. Every human being trapped here matters.