Back from my self-imposed Hexbear exile, I needed to turn off news (which dramatically failed) and stop reading some of the weird ass tantrums here. Now some unrelated points as usual:

• Situation in Syria is slowly reaching a new chaotic state. Numerous sectarian clashes between HTS and Alawites, and Kurds vs Turkish-backed fighters in the north. The main cities are still calm and in an optimistic mood though, I was in a video call with my cousin on Monday and he filmed some of the markets and main squares in Damascus, it looked pretty calm and people are still in some sort of revolutionary euphoria. Iraq 2003-2007 is still definitely on the cards, sectarian battles and stuff like that will escalate and reach a climax before things settle. The new government from a pure bureaucratic standpoint are doing okay imo though, things are slowly returning to normal and somehow functioning.

• Russian crossing of the Oskol was strangely uneventful, they just crossed from 2-3 points and established a pretty solid bridgehead on the other side of the river. I expected some grand battle when they would inevitably cross the river one day, but it was pretty anticlimactic and Ukrainian troops on the west bank of the river seem to be unprepared and outnumbered even by some Russian troops without heavy equipment. Kurakhove, Velika Novosilka and Toretsk seem to be wrapping up by the end of January, next step is probably Pokrovsk until some bigger Russian movements by summer 2025. The war in the current pace still doesn't reach any final stage until summer 2026.

• Visiting Iraq with the wife and the kid in around a month, you'll get a trip report and some non-doxxing pics if things permit.

• I don't like how things are going in Iran, the country seems to be entering a hard period of decline and they'll be Syria'd by Trump and Israel if they don't get their shit together soon.

• This website has some of the dumbest drama I've ever seen lmao, grow up

Daily reminder that the astronauts that capitalism stranded on the ISS are still stuck up there.

https://nypost.com/2024/12/24/us-news/how-astronauts-stranded-on-the-international-space-station-got-santa-hats/

this is a few days old but nobody posted it i think

Human Rights Watch determines israel is committing acts of genocide

Israel’s Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza Authorities’ Widespread Deprivation of Water Threatens Survival

• Israeli authorities have deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population in Gaza by intentionally depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water, most likely resulting in thousands of deaths.
• In doing so, Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide. The pattern of conduct, coupled with statements suggesting that some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, may amount to the crime of genocide.
• Governments and international organizations should take all measures to prevent genocide in Gaza, including discontinuing military assistance, reviewing bilateral agreements and diplomatic relations, and supporting the International Criminal Court and other accountability efforts.

this is following the previous amnesty international report that determined that israel is committing acts of genocide in gaza

Remember when the Israeli football hooligans were rioting and the BBC tried to pass footage of them beating someone as the opposite?
Today, 45 days later, they are "happy to correct the record."

Luigi is pleading not guilty
Kinda interesting that the state went for the terrorism angle but the feds are treating it more like a targeted murder. It's somewhat contradictory and could make it difficult for some of the charges to stick.

Feels like we sort of passed over the massive news of the Northvolt (Europe's only EV battery producer) collapse a few weeks back, so I'm going to re-up it here to highlight how monumentally fucked the European automobile industry is long term. Not exactly news to anybody here that's been paying attention, but the staggering mismanagement of what is so obviously a key and strategic piece of European industry is perhaps still baffling. The article's name is "The Northvolt dilemma: can European EVs avoid relying on Asian batteries?", and as the Betteridge law of headlines states, the obvious answer to this question is "No."

Two months before Northvolt filed for bankruptcy in the US, Robin Zeng, known as China’s “battery king”, had a quick but grim answer as to why European battery makers were struggling to make good products. “They have a wrong design . . . they have a wrong process . . . and they have the wrong equipment. How can they scale up?” the chief executive of CATL told Nicolai Tangen, the head of Norway’s $1.8tn oil fund. “So almost all mistakes together.” The bleak assessment from the world’s biggest electric vehicle battery manufacturer captures the scale of the failure for the industries behind the critical technology for Europe’s decarbonisation, leaving governments, companies and investors at a loss as to how to recraft the continent’s strategy to compete with China.

Northvolt’s demise means the battle for dominance of the European market is likely to play out between Asian battery makers. LGES and SK On both have European plants, in Poland and Hungary respectively, while CATL has a factory in Germany and a second site in Hungary due to begin production next year. But Tim Bush, a Seoul-based battery analyst at UBS, said there was little prospect at present that the Asian battery makers would be able to help the EU to meet its target for 90 per cent of the continent’s EV batteries to be produced locally by 2030. Bush noted that Korean battery makers were already paring back their investments in Europe, having invested billions of dollars in plants in North America that have been running at low utilisation rates because of lower than expected consumer demand for EVs. Potential Chinese battery investments on the continent were also likely to be complicated by the ongoing trade dispute between Brussels and Beijing over EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, he added. “The Koreans are not expanding, the Chinese have suspended construction and Europe’s new entrants are dropping like flies,” said Bush.

With European start-ups still behind in their ability to manufacture batteries at scale, industry executives say the only solution may be to continue their reliance on Asian participants until homegrown companies can absorb technology knowhow on battery chemistry, mass production and equipment manufacturing. “We need to find a deal with China because we won’t be able to compete . . . without the support of the Chinese companies that control the mining industry, chemicals, refining and their capacity and competence,” Luca De Meo, Renault’s chief executive, told reporters last month.

So basically, the Europeans destroyed their only chance of domestic battery consumption by epic mismanagement, and their acquiescence to USAmerican empire means they're fucking up their opportunity to draw Chinese EV investments into Europe proper due to tensions and sanctions, and the US/South Korea can't even begin to supply the necessary battery supply for the EU, so their car industry is basically fucked. The USAmerican destruction of European industry proceeds apace...

Source: https://archive.is/4Ys7n

Is jacobin fucking high?

One of Karl Marx’s most persistent points, from “On the Jewish Question” forward, is that despite the formal freedoms that we enjoy in a liberal state — the right to freedom of speech, for example, or freedom of religion — we are socially and in fact unfree. (As Bruno Leipold reports in his Citizen Marx, a lot of Marx’s evidence for this claim, particularly about religion, came from travelers’ reports to America, which Marx read assiduously.) That is what it means to live in a liberal society, says Marx: formally free, actually unfree.

But lately I’ve been wondering whether we are not living in the reverse. Despite the efforts of right-wingers to bend the state in a repressive, less free direction, society seems more and more resistant to these efforts. Producing a situation that is, in some sense, the mirror image of what Marx described.

You are totally free, unless you protest anything state deems important. Or strike in important industry. Look at my leftist "intellectuals", we are boned

Felt the urge to dust off some research on family friends and rediscovered that I'm 4 degrees of separation from Assad. Solid ones, too. Guess that's less signficant now

hope pope fucking drop kicks biden when he arrives in vatican.

Excommunicate his ass first, so that he knows he is going to hell

Baking hope in Gaza: Making Christmas cookies in a displacement tent

Khan Younis, Gaza – From a makeshift kitchen with a sand floor and a nylon roof, and lacking the most basic equipment, Mayess Hamid prepared Christmas cookies this year.

Hamid, 31, has been making cakes and cookies for about 10 years, working at one of Gaza’s largest cake shops before it was destroyed in Israel’s continuing war on the besieged enclave.

Like many in Gaza, she lost her job when the bakery she worked at was bombed.

“I wanted to start the year with optimism and make Christmas cookies to distribute to the children around me in the camp,” she says as she kneads.

“The war turned our lives upside down. I lost my income, and my home was destroyed,” says Hamid, who has been displaced nine times since her family left Zeitoun, east of Gaza City, and has now settled in al-Mawasi in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

“My children are excited, waiting eagerly and trying to help, especially with decorations,” she adds, arranging the cookies in a baking tray.

Making cookies was challenging because of basic food shortages that are so severe that some parts of Gaza are in famine.

Israel has largely blocked the entry of aid and commercial shipments since the beginning of the war.

Drawing from her experience, she substitutes unavailable materials with things she can find.

“Before the war, I decorated cakes with ready-made sugar paste. Now, I use a mix of liquid cheese and powdered sugar, and it works,” she says.

Lacking Christmas cookie cutters, Hamid drew stencils on paper using her phone, cut them out, and shaped the dough by hand using a knife.

“Even simple tasks like baking cookies have become challenges during the war,” she says, arranging the cookies and preparing to bake in a nearby clay oven the whole camp relies on.

“From gathering materials to shaping dough and baking, each step feels unfamiliar and complicated.”

As the second batch of cookies bakes, Hamid begins to decorate the first inside her small tent.

“The war may have taken my home and life as I knew it, but not my passion for decorating and attention to detail,” she says, glancing around her tidy tent.

While trying to bring a festive feel to the displacement camp, Hamid cannot hide her sorrow that the world celebrates Christmas as usual, while Gaza endures a second year of war and devastation.

“We try to smile, but our wounds run deep, and there is little we can do. We feel forgotten.”

At the same time, she still clings to hope that this Christmas will bring peace. Her sole Christmas wish is for the war to end.

“Just let the war stop. Let the killing and destruction end so we can live in peace with our children,” she says.

Why does nobody get called out for being a in the news megathread when they don't link their source 😤

Only 12 aid trucks (roughly 200,000kg) of aid has entered the northerh half of Gaza since October 2024, or in a span of 2.5 months. Source: Oxfam

piSSraeli sources of claim the amount of food in Gaza has increased to ~3,200kcal per day, equal to Sweden. The actual figure is between 20 to 50kcal, less than a quarter of Auschwitz

200,000 kilograms is what is needed to adequately feed a single 25-story apartment tower such as the Tygerberg's 1,100 residents in the same span of time.

Fatah banned Al Jazeera in the west bank. Traitorous pigs not even willing to allow Qatari comprador media to operate. Fuck Abbas. Hope his tortured body gets paraded around the streets of Al-Aqsa, like how Mussolini was

That one time Israel sniped Santa Claus in Gaza in 2017

i know im being a but i think such kind of assessment gives too much importance to billionaires' wealth. ofc, the obvious is that it confuses a stock measure, net worth with a flow measure, GDP. billionaires (and the corps) need be gulaged or executed because of their control over the politics, not for their money.

We joke about the war on Christmas, but it’s literally happening in Syria as Christians have reportedly been murdered in Wadi Al-Nasirah and threatened with expulsion in Maaloula. Less immediately harmful, but symbolic, is the arson of the Christmas tree in Suqaylibiyah

https://t.me/ASSYRIA11/47621

https://t.me/ASSYRIA11/47623

https://t.me/ASSYRIA11/47625

Elon Musk, using a cheesy voice modifier on his “Adrian Ditmann” account, says MAGA “will have to fucking deal with it” because “Elon is the only one to give these fucking crackheads a voice. You ungrateful motherfuckers, seriously.” “You keep crying censorship this, censorship that, you're not censored, your takes just suck. Get over yourselves.”

Yemen deserves to be the leader of the Resistance. They are not corrupt and consequently their nation is more united than any other country in the Resistance. They also do not suffer from 'self-overthrowing policies' syndrome that Iran suffers from. I hope Hezbullah recovers from the damages that it received for supporting Palestine. And I hope my country, Iran, do fix itself before its too late. So many talented smart people leave this country because of what Zionists call "our assets in Iran", that is extremists, especially the ones acting like one to get seats and ruin this country.

Merry Christmas. Wish you a happy year.

China is building new detention centers all over the country as Xi Jinping widens corruption purge - CNN

China has built or expanded more than 200 specialized detention facilities nationwide to interrogate suspects ensnared in Xi Jinping’s widening anti-corruption drive, a CNN investigation has found, as the Chinese leader extends his crackdown beyond the ruling Communist Party to a vast swath of public sectors.

Since taking power in 2012, Xi has launched a sweeping campaign against graft and disloyalty, taking down corrupt officials as well as political rivals at an unprecedented speed and scale as he consolidated control over the party and the military. Now well into his third term, the supreme leader has turned his relentless campaign into a permanent and institutionalized feature of his open-ended rule.

This MAGA civil war over H-1B visas is pretty funny, ngl.

Real wages cut in half is an epic win.

https://x.com/redstreamnet/status/1871218360870121607

Former President Bill Clinton is in the hospital after developing a fever

Fuck Jimmy Carter, but it would be hilarious if he outlived Bill Clinton because he's even worse.

Israel strikes Yemen airport as WHO chief prepares to board plane

Israeli warplanes struck multiple targets across Yemen on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said, including the country’s largest airport, where the head of the World Health Organization was about to board a flight.

The strikes targeted military infrastructure used by the Houthi rebels, the IDF said. The militant group has for months launched missiles at Israel, two of which broke through Israeli air defenses in the past week, causing damage and injuries.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the WHO, said the airport was bombarded as he was set to board. A member of his plane’s crew was injured in the strike, he said in a post on X. He said he and his United Nations colleagues were safe but that “the air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged.”

Israel slaughters 5 journalists by bombing their broadcast van

https://t.me/jeniincamp/92581

Biden has had a hard time being president since the 2020 election race due to his age and the health problems that came with it, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources.

From the very beginning, his entourage adjusted the presidential schedule, noting that Biden gets tired if meetings drag on, makes mistakes and has various "limitations." He was distanced from ministers, Congress and other high-ranking officials, isolated from the scrutiny of the public and the press.

His closest aides and advisers, such as Sullivan, Richetti and Brainard, often acted as intermediaries, and even Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had a hard time getting face-to-face meetings with Biden, including at key moments like the “disastrous” withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. And when they met with Biden, his interlocutors were asked to be clear and concise.

One lawmaker who did speak one-on-one with Biden noted that the president lacks stamina and relies heavily on his staff. Biden was especially bad in the mornings, so they tried to schedule meetings later. And sometimes they cancelled them altogether if the president was having a "bad day."

The president was literally led by the hand by his aides, especially during trips or public appearances. The White House, however, denies that the president's schedule was changed due to his health.

Cubans protest against US embargo outside US embassy in Havana

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans, led by former president Raúl Castro and current president Miguel Díaz-Canel, protested this Friday (20) outside the US embassy in Havana against Washington's trade blockade, a month before Donald Trump's return to the White House.

The “March of the fighting people against the blockade and the permanence of Cuba on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism” started from the Anti-Imperialist Tribune, an iconic esplanade in front of the US embassy, located on the Cuban capital's main seafront avenue, known as the Malecón. “We are marching now to tell the US government to let the Cuban people live in peace. Down with interference!” said Díaz-Canel, addressing the crowd, who were waving Cuban flags.

Despite being 93 years old, former president Raúl Castro, who officially retired in 2021, was at the head of the march, along with the Cuban president. “Tear down the blockade” and ‘We're not terrorists, take us off the list’, chanted the participants. “We need them to open their doors to us so that we can trade with all countries,” Rogelio Savigne, 55 and head of transportation at a state-owned company, told AFP. “If there hadn't been the blockade, the difficulties we're going through wouldn't be like this,” said Faustino Miranda (85), a pensioner.

Díaz-Canel denounced that, “when they persecute and prevent financial transactions [...], they are denying the people of Cuba food, medicine, fuel, goods, supplies and essential commodities for survival.” During his first term in office (2017-2021), Trump, who takes office on January 20, interrupted the historic rapprochement that both countries had begun in 2014 under Barack Obama (2009-2017). Trump applied 243 measures that reinforced the embargo, which has been in place since 1962, including the reincorporation of the island on the US list of “countries that sponsor terrorism”, along with Iran and North Korea. Democrat Joe Biden barely eased these sanctions and kept Cuba on the list, which blocks financial and economic flows to the island.

According to the authorities, around 700,000 people attended the demonstration in Havana, a figure that AFP was unable to verify independently. Mobilizations like this were started by Fidel Castro in the 1980s and have been organized at times of strong tensions between Havana and Washington.

Shortly after Trump's speech, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino released a video declaring that “every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to belong” to his country. Without mentioning Trump by name, Mulino addressed Trump's complaints over rising fees for ships crossing the canal, saying they are set by experts who take into account operational costs, and supply and demand factors.

“The tariffs are not set on a whim” Mulino said. He noted that Panama has expanded the canal over the years to increase ship traffic “on its own initiative,” and added that shipping fee increases help pay for improvements. “Panamanians may have different views on many issues” Mulino said. “But when it comes to our canal, and our sovereignty, we will all unite under our Panamanian flag.”

Trump then took to his social media site to offer in response, “We'll see about that!" He also posted a picture of a U.S. flag planted in the canal zone under the phrase, “Welcome to the United States Canal!”

Trump is going to push Panama towards China and Venezuela, isn't he? At this point it's US tradition to antagonize a Latin-American country until they seeks closer relations with either Russia or China.

Fox News reports that on the same night a U.S. Navy F/A-18 'Super Hornet' was shot down over the Red Sea, the USS Gettysburg fired an 'SM-2' interceptor missile at another F/A-18, missing it by about 30 meters.

Wtf is this? Biden is executing Order 66?

Some Syria news.

This news summary shows video footage of the protests in western Syria against the Western-backed “HTS” regime. The West’s “HTS” puppets opened fire on the peaceful protesters, revealing the true nature of this new “CNN democracy”: https://southfront.press/syria-is-boiling-amid-new-wave-of-crimes-of-armed-groups-loyal-to-new-government/

Syrian patriotic resistance forces (composed of former Syrian Arab Army troops) continue armed resistance in Tartus province against the “HTS” regime (note, yesterday the resistance eliminated 14 “HTS” gunmen in Tartus): https://thecradle.co/articles/clashes-erupt-in-western-syria-after-locals-ambush-hts-fighters

In addition, the resistance also eliminated four “HTS” gunmen in Balkasa (northwest of Homs): https://tass.com/world/1894101

The “HTS” regime also appointed a UN-designated al-Queda terrorist, Anas Hassan Khattab, as its new “intelligence chief” (I wonder how CNN will try spinning this...): https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/12/26/739791/Syria-nas-Hassan-Khattab-HTS-Israel-al-Bashir-Golani

US could buy Nord Stream – Vucic

The Serbian president has made the prediction following recent reports about an American investor’s bid for the pipeline

The sabotaged Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline could become the property of a US investor in a year, and gas supplies from Russia to the EU could be resumed through the connector, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has suggested.

Vucic shared his view about the future of the pipeline in an interview with the German news outlet Handelsblatt published on Friday.

“I dare to predict: In a year at the latest, Nord Stream will be owned by an American investor, and gas will flow from Russia to Europe through the pipeline,” the Serbian leader said. “Mark my words. One year until Nord Stream is up and running!”

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that US financier and investor Stephen Lynch had asked permission from the US Treasury Department to buy the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, if it is put up for auction next year.

lol. that would be extremely funny. imagine Gazprom selling gas to Europe through a pipeline owned by the Americans.

Merry christmas to all bloomers and doomers

and

the point is, of course, to change it

Some news from occupied Palestine, Syria, and Yemen.

Zionist genocidal airstrikes on northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital massacred 53 civilians: https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/12/27/739822/Hamas-Israel-raid-Hospital-war-crime

Washington’s “HTS” puppets in Damascus stated to “NPR” that they want to be “at peace” with the fascist and genocidal Tel Aviv regime: https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/12/27/739832/Syria-militant-governor-Damascus-peace-Israel-Golan-Heights

US and British imperialist warplanes attacked Yemen’s capital, Sana’a: https://thecradle.co/articles/us-british-jets-rain-fire-on-yemeni-capital-in-new-late-night-attack

In response to yesterday’s Zionist attacks on Yemen, the Yemeni Armed Forces conducted a Palestine-2 hypersonic ballistic missile strike on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport: https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/12/27/739798/Missile-fired-from-Yemen-hits-Tel-Aviv

Brazilian liberal, pro-Lula da Silva mayor upsets the Zionist community in Brazil with a Christmas message.

In a Christmas message, Alexandre Kalil, former mayor of Belo Horizonte, published: “Just a reminder that Jesus was Palestinian, a refugee, poor, persecuted, tortured and murdered for preaching equality, social justice and love”.

Alexandre served as president of Clube Atlético Mineiro, a football club based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil that competes in Campeonato Brasileiro, the top tier of the Brazilian football league system, as well as in the Campeonato Mineiro. Alexandre is of Syrian descent, he is the only son of former club president Elias Kalil. Alexandre Kalil's career in Atletico started in the early 1980s, managing its volleyball team. He was also the football director and the president of the deliberation council.

China’s EV sales set to overtake traditional cars years ahead of west

China is set to smash international forecasts and Beijing’s official targets with domestic EV sales — including pure battery and plug-in hybrids — growing about 20 per cent year on year to more than 12mn cars in 2025, according to the latest estimates supplied to the Financial Times by four investment banks and research groups. The figure would be more than double the 5.9mn sold in 2022.

“They want to electrify everything,” said Liew. “No other country comes close to China.”

As China’s EV market tracked towards year-on-year growth of near 40 per cent in 2024, the market share of foreign-branded cars fell to a record low of 37 per cent — a sharp decline from 64 per cent in 2020, according to data from Automobility, a Shanghai-based consultancy.

Vincent Sun, an equity analyst covering China’s car sector for investment research group Morningstar, noted that several multinational carmakers, including Germany’s Volkswagen, were not expecting to release major new EV models in China until late 2025 or 2026.

The U.S. has sanctioned Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder and honorary chairman of Georgia's ruling Georgian Dream party, for 'undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia in favor of the Russian Federation.'

Panic in global metals markets as China rare earth export bans close brokerage hubs (Disclaimer: I'm unfamiliar with this author, I just came across their video version of this article through the youtube algo)

The Chinese bans are pushing metals prices violently higher, and causing panic across defense sectors where these materials are vital for aerospace, ballistics, and munitions.

US miners are reluctant to invest in new production, arguing that China could simply relax restrictions in the future and prices would fall below their cost of production. But industry insiders admit that any production in North America and Europe would fall far short of demand, and would take years to come online.

Gotta love when one hand of capital can't cooperate with the other hand because it might negatively impact their profit margins in the short-term. Nevermind that the military arsenal the west uses to maintain the current world order - bullying other nations into selling us their resources and labor for violently-low prices - is itself still heavily reliant on those nations exporting materials to us. I'm sure that contradiction won't blow up in 's face at all.

Meanwhile China stays winning

mr president, a second south korean president has been impeached

Lawmakers from Yoon and Han's ruling People Power Party (PPP) protested after National Assembly speaker Woo Won-shik announced that only 151 votes would be needed to pass the impeachment bill.

This meant that, unlike the 200 votes required for Yoon's impeachment, no votes from ruling lawmakers would be needed this time for Han to be impeached in parliament.

Ruling party MPs gathered in the middle of the voting chamber chanting, "invalid!" and "abuse of power!" in response, and called for the Speaker to step down. Most of them boycotted the vote.

The opposition first filed an impeachment motion against Han on Thursday after he blocked the appointment of three judges that parliament had chosen to oversee Yoon's case.

Korea's Constitutional Court is typically made up of a nine-member bench. At least six judges must uphold Yoon's impeachment in order for the decision to be upheld.

There are currently only six judges on the bench, meaning a single rejection would save Yoon from being removed.

13th MQ-9 drone downed over Yemen

https://t.me/AnsarAllahMC/249732

Not even a month

Hundreds protest in Christian areas of Syrian capital after Christmas tree burned

Demonstrations flare after video spread on social media showing hooded fighters setting fire to tree Agence France-Presse in Damascus and Reuters Tue 24 Dec 2024 11.48 GMT

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in Christian areas of Damascus early on Tuesday to protest against the burning of a Christmas tree near Hama in central Syria, Agence France-Presse journalists witnessed.

“We demand the rights of Christians,” protesters chanted as they marched through the Syrian capital towards the headquarters of the Orthodox patriarchate in the Bab Sharqi neighbourhood.

The protests come a little more than two weeks after an armed coalition led by Islamists toppled the government of Bashar al-Assad, who had cast himself as a protector of minorities in the Sunni-majority country.

A demonstrator who gave his name as Georges told AFP he was protesting “injustice against Christians”.

“If we’re not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don’t belong here any more,” he said.

The protests erupted after a video spread on social media showing hooded fighters setting fire to a Christmas tree in the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah, near Hama.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fighters were foreigners from the Islamist group Ansar al-Tawhid.

In another video posted to social media, a religious leader from Syria’s victorious Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) addressed local people, claiming those who torched the tree were “not Syrian” and promising they would be punished. “The tree will be restored and lit up by tomorrow morning,” he said.

The Islamist HTS movement, rooted in al-Qaida and supported by Turkey, has promised to protect minorities since its lightning offensive toppled Assad this month after years of stalemate.

Turkey’s interior minister said on Tuesday that more than 25,000 Syrians had returned home from Turkey since Assad was ousted. Turkey is home to nearly 3 million refugees who fled the civil war that broke out in 2011, and whose presence has been an issue for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government.

“The number of people returning to Syria in the last 15 days has exceeded 25,000,” Ali Yerlikaya told the official Anadolu news agency. Ankara is in close touch with Syria’s new leaders and focusing on the voluntary return of Syrian refugees, hoping the shift in power in Damascus will allow many of them to head home.

The US military said on Monday it conducted an airstrike in Syria that killed two Islamic State operatives and wounded one. The IS operatives were moving a truckload of weapons in Dayr az Zawr province, an area formerly controlled by the Syrian government and Russians, when they were targeted with the airstrike, US Central Command said in a statement on X.

There is a new genre of crank who thinks every medium sized explosion is caused by small tactical nukes:
https://xcancel.com/Ben68638515/status/1871046543958331531

The dude really thinks the Nordstream pipeline was sabotaged by nukes and even has an entire page on his personal site dedicated to this:
https://www.geophysical-forensics.ch/nordstream.html

Macron announces France's fourth government in a year

this fucking guy.

Both Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu and Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot kept their jobs, the presidency said.

Mr Lecornu, a 38-year-old loyalist with a keen political nose, has served in every government since Mr Macron's first election as president in 2017.

Conservative Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who has vowed to crackdown on illegal immigration, and right-wing Culture Minister Rachida Dati, also stayed in their posts.

Mr Bayrou had hoped to bring in figures from the left, right and centre to protect his government from possible censure, but his 35-member team does not include any members of the left-wing coalition New Popular Front.

Just before the official announcement, right-wing politician Xavier Bertrand, who had been tipped for the health ministry, announced he would not be part of the government.

He alleged that it had been formed with the implicit "backing" of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who will play a key role in ensuring its survival.

Telegram link

Video shows Zionazi automated robots placing explosive boxes at the gates of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.