news

Ooooh bticoin at 88k (

truly the unwisest timeline

*Wait, does this mean electical grid in the global south will get fucked again

fucks sake

Just a few random thoughts about Russian strategy and current short term goals in Ukraine. I've been religiously following this war since the first few days and I guess like many of you nerds here, one begins to sort of develop an understanding of military affairs after consuming so much content in a short period. My analysis of the current South Donetsk offensive is that it is the most coherent and well-executed campaign since the start of the war. Previous long-term Russian and Ukrainian offensives were like separate islands of small gains, never joining together into one single front that drastically collapses an entire part of the front. Ukraine for example during their 2023 summer offensive attacked in three different directions, south of Orikhiv, west of Bakhmut, and south of Velika Novosilka. All those fronts never had a realistic chance of actually linking up, as they were too far from each other and there was never a real coherent "what happens next" plan. Same with the Russian offensive in the start of the war. They attacked near Kiev, near Kharkov, from the South and north of the old LPR territory, but the first two fronts could never realistically collapse an entire sector and link up to be one continuous front with supply lines entirely located in the captured zones. Even Bakhmut was the same, Russia made a dent in the frontline, but the lack of offensives in Siversk and Toretsk meant that Russia couldn't collapse an entire sector and straighten out the line again, so they only took the city and some territory around it.

Their current southern offensive is different though, with three big arrows that are actually threatening the entire South Donetsk sector for Ukraine. An advance of a few km from each direction now is lethal for the AFU. They would lose one of the most fortified sectors of the front, and escape into open fields with no fortifications all the way to Pavlograd. According to a map of fortifications that I saw last week, the whole section from Kurakhovo to the centre of Dnipro Oblast has barely any defensible ground, and the opening of that sector for Russian troops means that they will be able to outflank Ukraine's north-south trench systems in Zaporozhye, and the east-west systems in fortified central Donetsk. 2025 will be extremely decisive for this war if Trump doesn't pull off a 4D chess peace agreement.

https://www.wusf.org/2024-10-23/why-the-garment-workers-of-bangladesh-are-feeling-poorer-than-ever

According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, the average price American retailers paid two years ago for a cotton t-shirt made in Bangladesh was $1.83. This year, it’s $1.65 – nearly a 10% drop.

One reason is increased competition among factories in Bangladesh to sell their wares, so prices are dropping.

At the same time, the country is experiencing a wave of inflation that has meant greater expenses for the workers in their daily lives — and for factories as well.

Mobarak says that Yunus has an opportunity to use his influence to protect workers’ rights.

“He could use his voice effectively to bring international buyers to the table and help them recognize their ethical obligations toward poor Bangladeshi workers,” he says.

So far, Yunus has not publicly addressed this issue.

I love npr passive descriptions here (at least seems like fairly objective reporting without matty saviourism, but jesus christ)

the latest episode of Oats for Breakfast was an interview with Norman Finkelstein, most of which was about his personal history in the occupied West Bank during the first intifada, but also touching on trump v harris/biden and the war since october 7. Finkelstein is such a pleasure to listen to, truly the ultimate in earnest no-fun scolding. the interviewer on the podcast is a bit milquetoast at times, but that makes the interview even better because of finkelstein's strident moralism and rigor.

one thoughtful point raised by finkelstein was about the risk of fascism with trump's election - he makes the point that fascist states have emerged in history as a response to strong left wing movements. there is no strong left wing mass movement in the US, so there is less incentive for the state to be openly fascist.

Twitch declares that “Zionist” is a slur, will issue bans for criticizing “individuals” based on their “religious beliefs or background” (genocide, settler colonialism)

https://archive.ph/qwX4r

Direct implications for leftist anti-genocide influencers like Hasan and his platform, also possibly setting precedents for mass censorship and removal of other Palestinian and anti-genocide organizing on major social media networks.

[Post: https://hexbear.net/post/3904798]

European Liberals realising that American social media is designed for political interference is so funny.

So, the Brazilian terrorist (the Liberal Joker lol) was a locksmith and a landlord. Most of his money came from renting out a building to various people. It seems he was married to a random woman, who is also a far-right Bolsonaro supporter, and she confirmed that she saw him googling things about bombs and terrorism, and also confirmed that the couple (before divorcing in 2023) went to protests in 2022/2023, where they begged the Army, the US, aliens and God (that's not a joke, by the way) for a coup.

She said she knew her ex-husband was going to kill Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and called the judge an animal that deserved to be killed, she said that to the Federal Police investigators. And to make things even funnier, this couple also stole money from the government's social programs by falsifying documents, which makes things funny because in the Liberal Joker's manifesto he said he was angry about Lula's Tax Reform because it would target the rich and take money from them to give to useless people who didn't deserve it (he's talking about poor people).

(cw: one mildly NSFW blurred image of Benny Gantz being kissed on the stomach)

The Iranian Handala hacking group hacked into Gallant’s personal computer and released images.

Handala teases Israel’s Aman and says they should answer their public with some questions:

• Explain the secret relationship between Adi Sabag and Gallant in the red bed room on the 16th floor of Matcal Tower and the leak of some classified data by Gallant and the online spying of Adi's mobile at that moment.

2- Explain the secret relationship between Netanyahu's trusted doctor and Benny Gantz at the Savoy Hotel in London and the transfer of some confidential data from Bibi to Gantz by that doctor.

3- The suicide of Noga, Gantz's daughter, after hearing the story of her father's secret relationship, who was only looking for more information from Bibi.

The Iranian Handala hacking group also exposed the identity of “Adi Sabag,” the Inspection Commander of the General Staff of the Israeli Army, for the first time.

Her appearance was unknown to the public.

— Handala writes:

This senior female commander is responsible for many events and criminal decisions of the Israeli army. Now, for the first time, the images of this senior commander are revealed. This is a historic failure for Aman! Do you know how much top-secret data reached us when Adi was in charge of the General Staff Office?

We have said many times that it is painful for you to even imagine what secret organizations we are apart of!

In the post above, Handala exposed the secret relationship between Adi Sabag & Gallant.

from https://xcancel.com/AryJeay/status/1855940843321827819

disgusting husks of human beings, absolutely perversion from top to bottom in that department of anything resembling morality

Since the Amsterdam maccabi hooligan event, Israel has been trying really hard to influence the narrative put out by media and politicians. The ministry of Diaspora has put out a document detailing supposed ties between Palestinian liberation activist groups and Hamas (lol). They also claim that these liberation groups preplanned the attacks on hooligans, and their proof is literally just a call for people to come join their protest during the match.

These ‘allegations’ would be funny if we did not have a right extremist government that is receptive to them.

Here is Minister Amichai Chikli outlining these conspiracies himself: https://x.com/amichaichikli/status/1856397777548284273

seems like government of lebanon will sign something

[LONG EFFORTPOST]

Hello liberals, I will give my balance on 's Argentina and how things are as of right now, November 2024. But my talk will not be about the cringe ass ancap, I will talk about Peronism and their role as opposition.

As some of you might recall, milei's violent rethoric against "public" education (and I put public on quotes because I have another definition of what is public and what isn't) triggered a nation-wide response from universities as many of them were occupied by the students. Mine was among the first to do so, not unlikely considering it is an historic hotbed for left wing militacy, even though today it's not as good as it used to be.

Anyways, the movement gained traction but, as with many things, the lack of coordination and some... sabotage from within slowly but surely eroded it. It was to be expected, some universities are not really politicized because of course people who study complex mathematics don't have time to read Marx or something, and others have either shit soccdem or peronist leadership and fighting is not for them. My university ended up abandoning the occupation after like 20 days or so, we fought heavily to keep it running but at the end of the day we had to leave it. During the last assemblies, our struggle was directly against peronists and their party structure, who began to attempt to dissolve the movement to "take the fight elsewhere", in accordance with their general policies.

But nothing is really a failure, no matter how bad it looks. There's always experiences to draw upon and lessons to learn. Our lesson is that you just can't trust peronist-aligned groups, no matter how "radical" they may seem, because they have non-revolutionary agendas and are NOT anti-capitalist, they're just reformists who want to play nice and with some rules. The student's leadership in our university is ideologically aliged with the authorities, all are peronists. Then, a professor in one assembly said "There is fear among the authorities that this kind of assemblies might go out of control and become truly democratic and truly horizontal, some people are indeed fighting not for the common good but for their comfort positions". And he, in just a few sentences, described peronism and how they view the struggle against milei.

There has been a very alarming lack of action from the main confederation of unions, the CGT. They are the ones who say "Okay, general strike" and there will be a general strike, their level of reach and organization is unmatched. Unfortunately, the leadership of the CGT and of the many unions that form it are either all peronists or something else, few if any are leftist. The fact they haven't called for strikes in nearly one year of suicidal policies by milei is indeed alarming, it's especially bad considering the CGT has been active and calling for strikes EVEN against former peronist governments. They're nothing but a rotten group of decadent old white men who weaponized class struggle and left it at the mercy of a grotesque bureaucracy.

So if you don't see much action it's because peronism has an interest to cut a deal and keep people away from doing dangerous commie things. They don't want spontaneous organisation by workers where they take matters into their own hands. After all, peronism is anti-communist despite what some confused folks of the Communist Party think, "United Front" my fucking dick and balls lmfao, losers. I believe that peronism understand milei as a temporary anomaly, that things will "go back to normal" once he expires, they're old fashioned politicians who think the new kind of "outsiders" are short lived. Well, the normalcy we once knew is dead, even more when the latest capitalist crisis cycles are getting worse and worse.

They do want to go out to the streets, but only on their terms. Meanwhile they're trying to craft Cristina Fernández de Kirchner back to a presentable leader, as she just assumed control of the Justicialist Party (main peronist electoral party), but she is responsible for getting us into this mess in the first place. Then, once society reaches a point of near collapse, that's when they'll mobilize and cut a deal with the milei government for some sort of "peaceful transition", maybe in the midst of heavy repression like it happened during the December 2001 Riots. Peronism after all is Capital's safe bet when it comes to "social peace".

Therefore, to me it becomes evident that there must be a concentrated effort to organize the working class OUTSIDE the influence of peronism. It's a job that will take years, or maybe not, who knows. The Trots have been doing that fairly well, if anything since the 2000's they've been consistently growing and taking more spaces than before. And while Trots have a shitton of problems, their general stance is a million times better than peronist "we'll give you a better salary XD" policies that reproduce capitalism. Still, agitation becomes necessary and desirable.

Things will continue to decay, milei might "accelerate" the economy for the midterms but that'll make it crash later down the line. I think our goal as leftists is to convince those who felt betrayed by peronism and who hate neoliberalism to join the ranks of Socialism, and I can tell you slowly but surely more people are feeling just like that.

Floods in honduras

https://neuters.de/world/americas/honduras-battles-flooding-tropical-storm-sara-unleashes-heavy-rainfall-2024-11-16/

Update 260 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine - 17 November 2024

Although the NPPs [Nuclear Power Plants] - Khmelnytskyy, Rivne and South Ukraine – were not directly impacted and did not shut down, several electrical substations on which they depend suffered further damage during the strikes, Director General Grossi said, citing information from Ukraine’s national regulator. The main power lines from four of the substations were disconnected. At the moment, only two of the country’s nine operational reactors currently generate electricity at 100 percent capacity.

The IAEA teams based at the NPPs heard air defence activities and sought shelter during the air raid alarms. At the Khmelnytskyy NPP, the IAEA team heard a loud explosion. At the Rivne NPP, two 330 kilovolt (kV) power lines were unavailable, the team there reported.

Of the nine currently operational reactors at the three NPPs, six reduced output during the morning, ranging from just over 40 percent of maximum capacity to above 90 percent. At the moment, only two operate at 100 percent capacity, with one in shutdown for maintenance. All NPPs continued to receive off-site power.

The Russian de-electrification campaign against Ukraine has reached a new stage this morning, with strikes on substations and main power lines connected to nuclear power plants. Critically though, off site power supply was not hit, or at least not destroyed to the extent to fully interrupt it. This is important to ensure proper cooling for the NPPs.

i finally get how my mom feels about my ex's. it's exaclty how i feel about lula bc of how he's treated maduro and venezuela with respect to them joining BRICS. how dare that cretin harm my sweet boy

Death to America

Some Mozambique questions that I have on my mind after recently watching a vlog by a Palestinian-Jordanian vlogger who was in Maputo.

1. How anti-imperialist is FRELIMO these days and how come that they seem mostly kinda hated by the locals?

2. How prevalent is drug use and general crime in the country? There seems to be crazy amounts of drug users in some neighborhoods and even the metal car logo thingy in front of cars get stolen and sold in criminal markets that are semi-allowed in the country.

3. Has FRELIMO achieved some success in terms of addressing widespread poverty and living conditions in the slums? The situation seemed horrible from what I saw in the video.

4. How deep is Portuguese colonial penetration these days? We know that the French never really left the colonies despite the independence of the colonies. What's the situation with Portuguese imperialism?

Not even pretending; https://x.com/Zheega123/status/1857487076645810514

Ceasefire deal inching toward a conclusion. Key sticking point was a clause giving Israel freedom of action in Lebanon, appears to have been removed but Israel is getting written guarantee from Biden (which Trump is certain to uphold) of support for such action in the future.

US is at the same time the mediator of US-Lebanon talks, while also giving Israel written guarantees that they can ignore the deal reached in these US/Israel-Lebanon talks and just attack Lebanon at any point with full US support.

I’m glad Mozambique is getting more coverage on here. I was afraid that it would get buried under everything else with it being an African country most aren’t familiar with.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/new-nvidia-ai-chips-face-issue-with-overheating-servers-information-reports-2024-11-17/

Nvidia ML chips overheating

Julie Alli (host speaker of Salaamedia) now openly refers to it as "Nazi israel" in addition to the "Zionist Apartheid entity" and she even doubled down since this morning while interviewing the coordinator for the Palestine Solidarity Committe Prof. Usuf Chikte. He also on live radio stated that if Zionists don't want to be called Nazis, then they should not be Nazis.

I should start putting these interviews on TankieTube

Hamas calls for ‘Arab-Islamic alliance’ to end "Israeli" war on Gaza, Lebanon | The Cradle

Hamas called in a statement on 10 November for the formation of an “international Arab-Islamic alliance” to bring an end to the war in Gaza and Lebanon, ahead of a summit hosted by Saudi Arabia to address the "Israeli" genocide.

The resistance movement called on all “kings, presidents, and leaders gathered at the joint Arab-Islamic follow-up summit scheduled to be held tomorrow in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to form an international Arab-Islamic alliance to pressure the occupation and its supporters to stop the war of genocide in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.”

It also called on the participants of the summit to “work to break the siege on Gaza, withdraw from the occupied territories, enable the Palestinian people to exercise their rights to self-determination, establish a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and return Palestinian refugees to their cities and villages from which they were displaced.”

[continues]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-questions-icc-judges-impartiality-netanyahu-arrest-case-2024-11-13/

ICC warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant likely delayed yet again

https://search.app?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com%2Fpost%2Fliteracy-statistics-2022-2023&utm_campaign=aga&utm_source=agsadl1%2Csh%2Fx%2Fgs%2Fm2%2F4

Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 130 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children

21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022

54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level

45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level

44% of the American adults do not read a book in a year

The Top 3 states for highest child literacy rates were Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Hampshire, in that order (highest to lowest).

The Bottom 3 states for child literacy rates were Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico, (highest to lowest).

Any American here that could tell me if it's legit. It's shockingly low.

Lathing Trump appointing senators he doesn't like to cabinet positions before unceremoniously firing them after their senator vacancy has been filled by people Trump likes.

NED is going to be present in Johannesburg of all places next weekend. The live broadcast on Salaamedia called out the NED for being a CIA front, very pro-western/Zionist and collaborating with the Apartheid regime. Both the radio/show host and BDS guest speaker Roshan Dadoo also rightfully took offence to the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation for being one of the venues participating in NED's visit.

I wonder if NED's unwelcome visit to South Africa is related to the unrest in Mozambique, as there have been concerns levied of the violence spilling over into South Africa, with the far-right opposition declaring the elections illegitimate. Of course the supports the Apartheid collaborating party. Mozambique is also just 550 kilometers from Durban and Gauteng. Fertile grounds for another Maidan colour revolution to cause chaos for South Africa. ISIS are also present and have made threats to attack since 2016, but these never materialised.

Just 2 months prior, a Zionist-led "peace in the Middle East" conference that was scheduled to be held in Constitution Hill (also in Johannesburg, which includes the old prison and the Constitutional/Human Rights Court) was canceled due to massive outcry and protests.

Imtiaz Sooliman of the Gift of the Givers should absolutely pursue legal action against the SAJBD, SAZF and SAJR and deliver an earth-shattering smackdown like a WWE fighter with a folding steel chair following defamatory statements in public. I personally think about R1.5 trillion ZAR sounds reasonable enough.

Seeing a lot of Is'ntrael flag people suddenly very concerned about genocides in Africa.

I couldn't find the article I saw today, but it was about how Xi Jinping and Lula da Silva will meet after the G20 in Rio de Janeiro. It seems that, due to Trump's victory, Lula now wants to join the Belt and Road Initiative (it seems that the neoliberals and liberals who support Lula but didn't like China are really afraid that Trump's government and protectionist policies will hurt them and are now pushing for Brazil to join China/BRI). With Brazil joining the BRI, I think China's plan to build the Bioceanic Railway and the Megaport in Peru will succeed. We'll see, but Trump's victory may have pushed Brazil more towards China. I think the fact that Biden didn't give Brazil the money he promised didn't help relations between these two countries.

Israel Evicts Bedouin Village to Build Jewish-Only Town - Telesur English