news

@LargePenis@hexbear.net on upcoming Iraqi elections including a rundown of all major parties by region. A lot of juice in this one.

DM me to highlight good comments from this week's newsmega.

Last week's effort posts of the week

Complete breakdown of the 2025 Iraqi Parliamentary Elections

Bismillah

We mustn’t forget that this place started as an offshoot of a certain subreddit that was named r/ChapoTrapHouse, a place that Islamic explorer Qathib Al Kabir visited in 1441 AH. He wrote this in his memoirs:

I also saw the Chapos. They had come to post and had disembarked upon the front page of Reddit. Never have I seen minds so convinced of their own dialectical perfection. They’re fair, of average stature, they wear neither suits nor ties, and their main source of illumination is their triple monitors. Every man wears a hoodie that covers half his dignity, so that one arm may clutch a vape.

They carry irony, memes, and citations to Lenin and Wikipedia, and always have them to hand. They wield podcast microphones of formidable make, forged in the fires of struggle sessions. They speak of electoralism with a fervor both mocking and sincere.

Yet I beheld among them a curious contradiction, they sin greatly by committing to electoralism, whispering of “lesser evils” and “harm reduction” as if these were sacraments. When such weakness overcomes them, they hasten to atone. They do this not by prayer, but by posting a certain picture of Lenin, his gaze stern yet forgiving, accompanied by words of repentance and a number of ironic upvotes. Thus their consciences are cleansed, and they return once more to the holy work of posting.

The Travels of Qathib Al Kabir, p.69.

Here we are in 2025, and I’m writing a mega post on the Iraqi Parliamentary Elections that are set to be held on November 11th. Call this a homage to Chapo’s electoral past, but I’m a nerd, you’re all nerds, so let’s just jump into it.

::: spoiler Section 2 - Breakdown of Parties and Candidates by Region

I initially broke down this by governorate, but it became too cluttered. I know my long ass tables are popular within megathread circles, but you’re getting wide boi tables that will break the thread on mobile instead of many long tables.

I have divided the country into four regions to make it easier for everyone. Region 1 is Baghdad, the mixed capital with a fat number of seats. Region 2 is the Shia-majority South (Babil, Basra, Dhi Qar, Karbala, Maysan, Muthanna, Najaf, Qadisiyya, Wasit), because the exact same parties are running in pretty much every governorate here. Region 3 is Sunni Arab-majority governorates (Anbar, Diyala, Nineveh, Saladin), because again it looks kinda similar here, but with a little twist in Diyala and Nineveh, as we have significant Kurdish and Shia minorities in those governorates. Region 4 is Kurdish-majority governorates (Duhok, Erbil, Kirkuk, Sulaymaniyah), similar parties in all governorates, with an important Arab + Turkmen minority in Kirkuk.

PART TWO FOLLOWS IN COMMENTS

Not particularly news but whatever, been wandering around China for the past week and it's been very interesting. Far more military propoganda than last time I was here a few years ago. This old ~70 year old Chinese woman next to me on the plane watched a two hour documentary on the Chinese navy. Ads on the metro remind people not to post pictures on social media if they include military movements in them. Tons of recruitment posters everywhere. One of my friends took me to the most enormous subway station I've ever seen in Shenzhen that was 90% empty space and she's convinced it was built as a bomb shelter first and station second. Feels like a society gearing up for war. Hope it doesn't come to that but glad it feels like the CPC is more than ready for it if it does.

On a lighter note people now wear historical dress walking around and it's delightful. Such colorful outfits are so cool. And Alipay added an option to use foreign credit cards which is amazing, life here without Wechat and Alipay is actually impossible. Insane that these are private companies and not state run services but alas, such is the Chinese way. Also I regret to inform you that without a VPN Hexbear seems blocked, so I guess we've been deemed liberals.

A Muslim man becoming the mayor of NYC on the day that Dick Cheney dies. You can't convince me that we're not living in a carefully crafted simulation.

Cheneys fuckin dead folks!

Seems like some Ukranian Special Forces using a Black Hawk helicopter, attempted to break the encirclement in Pokrovsk and they were all killed a few minutes later by Russian Drones.

I know a lot of people are (rightfully) shitting PPB on Dick Cheney finally kicking the bucket, but his death has unfortunately completely overshadowed another prominent politician who coincidentally died on the same day: Kim Yong-nam.

I have yet to see anyone on Hexbear mention this, so I thought I'd bring it up here.

Who was Kim Yong-nam? He was a senior-level DPRK politician who served many positions in the WPK, but most notably was the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, which is basically the DPRK equivalent of their head of state. The latter title in particular, Kim held for two decades until his retirement in 2019. He was considered one of the last OG revolutionary statesmen who served the newly created DPRK in Kim Il-sung's time, and was old enough to have witnessed the horrors of Japanese colonization, WWII and the Korean War. There are conflicting accounts on his childhood history, but according to his official state biography he was born in Pyongyang back when Korea was still occupied by the Empire of Japan. He often acted as a senior diplomat on behalf of Kim Jong-un and his father Kim Jong-il for various cross-cultural exchanges and multilateral negotiations, most notably he went to the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Games in Occupied Korea, and has met three former ROK Presidents.

Kim Yong-nam passed away at the ripe old age of 97. May he rest in power.

EuroNews - Chipmaker Nexperia said it halted China shipments on payment refusal

Posting mainly because the article describes Nexperia as “Dutch owned” and apparently the fact that Nexperia was very recently seized from Chinese ownership is somehow not a salient fact to include in the discussion.

Instead this is framed as China stealing Dutch IP rights, which the Dutch stole fair and square from the Chinese first I guess.

Regular day under US cultural/media/economic hegemony:

All Muslims are terrorists except for al Qaeda which is the legitimate government of Syria. In the UK now Al Qaeda Emir Joolani who was just this week removed from terrorist list but Pal Action is still proscribed.

Bashar al Assad was a comically corrupt supervising straight out of a marvel film and if you disagree then you are an "authoritarian" "axis of resistance ideologue" who is "denying atrocities." Sednaya prison was the worst thing imaginable and deserved global multilingual media attention but Sisi's dungeons with pro-Palestine demonstrators and al Saud's significant increase in death penalty including minors (in some cases over social media posts!) are not even worth mentioning at all.

Popular Mobilization Units in Iraq are "Iranian power projection" but two decades of US occupation and its naked threats against the Iraqi government is "US influence".

Democratically elected president of Venezuela Nicholas Maduro is a "dictator" who must be overthrown but don't ask why the US refuses to participate in UN human rights reports.

China has launched its third aircraft carrier (Fujian):

"Official Chinese media on Friday revealed that the country's third aircraft carrier, the electromagnetic catapults-equipped Fujian, was officially commissioned on Wednesday. China now officially entered an era with three aircraft carriers, as experts highlighted the significant capability boosts that the Fujian will give to the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).

President Xi Jinping on Wednesday attended the commissioning and flag-presenting ceremony of the Fujian, China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults, in South China's Hainan Province, the Xinhua News Agency reported."

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202511/1347603.shtml

Venezuela opposition leader claims Hamas is operating in Venezuela - The Canary

Fresh off winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado is eyeing up the Nobel Literature Prize. In aid of that, she concocted the following narrative:

This Bloomberg conversation with Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado is full of wild claims. Aside from what we already posted earlier (her insistence that Hamas is hiding in Venezuela).

Nobel Peace Prize winner and Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado welcomes U.S. airstrikes on Venezuela and the extrajudicial killing of Venezuelans at sea, insisting the strikes “are about saving lives.” Speaking to Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain, she also claims that Hamas, the Palestinian armed resistance group, is now located in Venezuela.

Alexei Zhuravlyov has said Moscow is supplying weapons to Venezuela and sees “no obstacles” to sending the Oreshnik missiles

https://united24media.com/latest-news/russia-signals-it-can-arm-venezuela-with-new-oreshnik-kalibr-missiles-amid-us-buildup-13076

Supreme Court condemns Americans to starve

https://www.npr.org/2025/11/07/nx-s1-5602351/full-snap-benefits-go-out-despite-appeal

Odessa anti-fascist partisans are back in action:

Odessa guerrillas have successfully sabotaged a segment of the Izmail-Odessa railway line, disrupting the flow of NATO ammunition and military equipment from Romania, according to Vladimir Saldo, governor of the Kherson Region.

"Odessa guerrillas inflicted a significant blow to the Ukrainian armed forces' logistical artery," Saldo stated. "On October 17, they blew up a section of the Izmail-Odessa railway. A freight train carrying NATO supplies from Romania was scheduled to pass through that route. The explosion occurred hours beforehand, effectively preventing the delivery," he explained via his Telegram channel.

https://tass.com/politics/2039703

https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/venezuelan-su30mk2-mach3-patrols

Think the redirection of the eye of sauron towards Nigeria has to do with the Venezuelan military bringing out the teeth and threatening to sink u.s navy ships?

Fucking baller if that's the case

Reddit is soyfacing over the Ukrainians flying a flag over Pokrovsk city hall, published by euromaidanpress.com. Honestly, i thought that theory for being the motivation behind the helicopter sorties was too stupid to be believable on first read, but we really do live in the dumbest timeline.

Yesterday, Mariupol communists celebrated October Revolution Day:

https://kprf.ru/party-live/regnews/238828.html (in Russian, with pictures)

Note, the city of Mariupol had lived underneath Banderite fascism from 2014 to 2022, where celebrating November 7th was banned. However, by May of 2022, the city had been fully liberated and had become part of the Donetsk People's Republic.

No idea why trump is mentioning Nigeria now (among other obvious things). No idea at all. No sir

Italy’s Nova news agency confirmed it let reporter Gabriele Nunziati go for asking a European official about Israel at a press conference.

"You’ve been repeating several times that Russia should pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine. Do you believe that Israel should pay for the reconstruction of Gaza since they have destroyed almost all its civilian infrastructure?"

https://theintercept.com/2025/11/04/journalist-israel-gaza-nova-gabriele-nunziati/

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/07/affirm-government-shutdown-shopping.html

Affirm CEO says furloughed federal employees are starting to lose interest in shopping

-Affirm CEO Max Levchin told CNBC that some federal workers impacted by the government shutdown are losing interest in shopping. -The federal funding lapse, which began Oct. 1, is the longest in U.S. history and has halted work across agencies. -Levchin’s comments followed a fiscal first-quarter earnings report from the buy now, pay later firm that blew past Wall Street’s estimates.

I can't possibly imagine why people who aren't getting paid have decided to cut back on the shopping.

In other news, a few of you caught the ridiculous comments coming out of OpenAI about getting backstopped by the government. This is a good rundown of the latest financial AI news:

www.ianwelsh.net/ai-bubble-burry-altman-friar-huang-karp

Did Burry, Altman, Friar, Huang, Karp and Sacks Just Pop the AI Bubble?

Left-ruled Kerala becomes the first Indian state to eradicate extreme poverty

Not super new news cause it was going around a week or two ago, but here's a good write up on it that looks a tiny bit at how this achievement was actually done:

On Saturday, November 1, India’s southern state of Kerala officially declared itself free of extreme poverty. This makes the left-ruled state the first and only state in the country to achieve such a milestone.

“Kerala has etched a new chapter in history—erasing extreme poverty to become the first place in India and the second in the world to achieve this milestone,”John Brittas, member of India’s parliament from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said on X.

On Saturday, Chinese ambassador to India Xu Feihong also congratulated Kerala’s government for its achievement, saying “to eliminate poverty is the common mission of humanity.”

In May 2021, the LDF government launched the Extreme Poverty Eradication Project (EPEP). The project had initially identified over 100,000 households as extremely poor. However, after the final analysis on the basis of access to food, income, shelter, and healthcare the number of households in extreme poverty came down to 64,006.

In the last four years extensive targeted attempts were made to provide sustained access to whichever element a particular family was lacking among these 64,006 families. This involved different government agencies and local self government bodies across the state.

Due to long-term welfare and development policies based on socialist distribution, such as land reforms, decentralization, high social expenditure on health and education, a robust public distribution system, among others adopted by the successive left governments in the state, the percentage of poor decreased drastically to just over 11% in 2011-12, when the last pan-India census was held.

Iraqi elections have started today. Members of the army, police, other security organs and also internally displaced refugees are voting today and tomorrow. The actual election day will be on Tuesday. I'll keep you nerds updates with the latest exit polls and general info as it comes up in the upcoming week.

OpenAI Would Like Federal Backstop For Data Center Investments, CFO Says -- WSJ

Hey, we all know that we will need a bailout. So why not just skip all the nonsense and do a pre-bailout?

Unrelated, from Ft:

Deutsche Bank is exploring ways to hedge its exposure to data centers. It's looking at options including shorting a basket of AI-related stocks and buying default protection via synthetic risk transfers.

https://www.ft.com/content/c0428010-1373-463e-91e6-8fe7d64a26df

China released a white paper today on "Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality China's Plans and Solutions.", if anyone's interested in perusing. I haven't had the time to look over it and see if there's anything interesting, though:

Full text

Venezuela Repatriates Over 16,000 Migrants, Denounces US Xenophobia and Racism

Venezuela received 573 repatriated migrants from the United States this week aboard two flights that landed at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, La Guaira state.

This week’s arrivals bring the total number of Venezuelans repatriated from the US since the program resumed in February to 16,040.

The majority of Venezuelan migrants in the US originally left the country after being impacted by the economic crisis from 2015 to 2020, a situation exacerbated by illegal US sanctions. After being subjected to a widespread smear campaign and incidents of xenophobic violence in the US, which falsely labeled Venezuelan migrants as criminals or mentally ill, the US government initiated a policy of mass detention and deportation. This aggressive approach has targeted migrants, the vast majority of whom have no criminal record and many of whom had initiated legal regularization processes.

The repatriated citizens were received under the protocols of the Return to the Homeland plan. This comprehensive program, initiated by the government of President Nicolás Maduro in 2018, provides free repatriation for Venezuelans in vulnerable conditions abroad. The program is designed to assist those who have fallen victim to xenophobia and exploitation, ensuring their dignified and safe return to their homeland. Upon arrival, migrants receive immediate support, including healthcare, psychological services, and necessary identification and socioeconomic checks to facilitate a successful reintegration into society.

A Venezuela undergoing booming economic growth and further along in the process of constructing socialism can make lemonade out of the lemons of US racist immigration policy. These people can return to a homeland in healthier and stronger than when they left and having seen the real horrors of the empire firsthand from a very different perspective. I could see this being a real boon to the country and these migrants.

Anyone post this yet?

https://english.news.cn/20251105/79ad8e78cefc476184a25ac8c9e85835/c.html

Norway’s parliament paused the government’s ethical investing rules. The move will let the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, keep its stakes in companies deemed unethical under the rules, such as Microsoft and Amazon, because of their work for Israel’s government. The fund recently sold its stake in Caterpillar over Israel’s use of its bulldozers in Gaza and the West Bank.

Would expect nothing less from Nordic so-called social democracy. From this morning's Economist Espresso.

Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space. They leave distance annihilated, cause things to grow, and improve productivity.

@unusual_whales

"Chinese stocks and gold are the best hedges against an AI meltdown," per Bank of America, $BAC.

Lmao

Update on developments in Venezuela:

The US Air Force and Marines posted a bunch of new photos of F-35 operations, mid air refueling, and pictures of the B-52 operations. F-35 pictures show nothing new, same armaments as before: GBU-54 500lb laser guided JDAMs to hit mobile surface targets, AIM-120D AMRAAM for long range air to air, and AIM-9X on stealthy external pylons for short range air to air.

The B-52H pictures do show something new though: unlike last time where the bombers flew in a "clean configuration" with no external pylons or targeting pods; this time they flew with the external hardpoints and pylons on both wings (but no weapons/unarmed), and with a Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod FLIR/IRST. This is notable because the external pylons increase the amount of stations for cruise missiles or 1000/2000lb class bombs on the B-52 from 8, to 20. The Sniper ATP also provides reconnaissance capability, notable because of how close the B-52s flew to Venezuela, with the coastline of the Paraguaná Peninsula visible in photos. Videos from 14 years ago show tracking of individual vehicles/cars and individual hotel windows at ranges in excess of 40nmi/75km using the Sniper ATP. So with how close the B-52s flew, they could map out extensive parts of Venezuela's coastline. This has likely been happening already though, with F-35 and P-8A flights, and other reconnaissance aircraft/unmanned aircraft.

Venezuela have also increased the amount of flyable F-16 fighter aircraft in their possession from 2, to 4 now. A new video of 4 Venezuelan F-16s flying appeared on social media. Doubling the amount of flyable airframes with no access to spare parts or official maintenance from the manufacturer is an impressive feat.

https://apnews.com/article/sandwich-throwing-trial-justice-department-a2776c568a1ea4b8ce5b6af606669b63 Sandwich guy found not guilty

More Perfect Union @MorePerfectUS:

In a new podcast Sam Altman says: " When something gets sufficiently huge ... the federal government is kind of the insurer of last resort, as we've seen in various financial crises ... given the magnitude of what I expect AI's economic impact to look like, I do think the government ends up as the insurer of last resort."

Do you think Trump is waiting for the government shutdown to end before he invades Venezuela?

Tesla shareholders approved a guaranteed $128 BILLION pay package for Elon Musk, with the ability to earn a lot more (up to $1 trillion in multiple tiers).

For perspective, Tesla's total net income since 2003 is around $45 billion.

The Electrek article on this is very good, also highlighting how Tesla shareholders voted multiple times to give themselves less power.

The ~~Economist~~ Prospect Magazine is again scaremongering about China being good at building renewables. (I'm not sure why my mind associated China scaremongering with the Economist!)

"China and the risk of renewables. Beijing's dominance of clean technology offers an escape from dependence on fossil fuels - and a new kind of danger"

But the article art is great!

A little international sporting news for the weekend of interest to us. The DPRK's team won the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup:

"The final took place at the Olympic Stadium in Rabat, Morocco, where the North Koreans scored all three goals in the first half to seal a 3-0 victory over the Netherlands, which was making its tournament debut.

North Korea, which also won the title in 2008, 2016, and 2024, is the only country to win four championships and is the second nation to win every match on the way to the cup, following Japan’s undefeated run in 2014."

https://www.rt.com/news/627520-north-korea-claims-record-title/

Deterrence might work. WSJ says Trump is hesitating about Venezuela strikes

https://archive.is/BdJxh

Trump Expresses Reservations Over Strikes in Venezuela to Top Aides

Administration is still deciding whether to push Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro out of power or extract concessions from him

Every day we stray deeper into the cool zone

An interesting part of lurking so many fash spaces on telegram means getting exposed to some of their thinking on current topics. An interest take I'm seeing in more than one place, including ops that are being carried out on reddit and other spaces is the belief among some of these fash that Mamdani is less dangerous than Hasan and that they think that by pushing Mamdani while smearing Hasan they can push his would-be audience in a softer direction and shrink his influence in the left in the longterm. Their thinking is that by having Mamdani as a thought-leader of a softer left they can push out Hasan into the same kind of fringe Empanada occupies.

The drones in Belgium are back, yet again. This time above an airport, nuclear power plant, and nuclear research centre. Belgium requested aid as they've failed to shoot down the drones. Members of the German army were sent to assist in taking them down.

Just wtf is going on? This isnt like the NJ "drone" flap where its mostly just videos of obvious planes and helicopters. Airspace is being heavily disrupted by drones that can't be jammed by current means that evade pursuers while running for the border when confronted. Belgium is taking it pretty seriously.

Common explanations so far:

1. Aliens

2. Russia

3. China

4. The US

Aliens I'll leave to you to decide on.

Russia isnt amazingly likely. If they had drones this good they'd be using them. Putin already directly denied it, for whatever that's worth.

China isnt impossible, but the drones are believed to be pretty damn advanced. If China had it, they wouldn't be using it to disrupt airports and scare Euros. They'd be keeping it close to their chests.

The angle on the US is that these are basically here to extort protection money. If they can't even stop a bunch of drones, clearly they need to buy more weapon systems from America. I'm leaning toward this being unlikely for the same reason as China, but also the entire American government is 12 now and that's a 12 year olds idea of a good plan.

The interesting claim in the UFO communities(oh hell yeah we're going there) is that they've been following nukes. The earlier locations, like Lakenheath, are places where the US keeps their bombs. Similarly, its believed they have nukes in Belgium too.

This further attaches to the UFOs and nukes connection, which is interesting to read about. Just take it with a grain of salt. (Take aaaaall of this with a grain of salt, obviously)

The drones don't need to be aliens to possibly be surveying nukes. That's also something that China probably already did, because knowing where the nukes are is important.

The final possibility is that its all made up. The US isnt going for protection money, Belgium is just inventing this to justify increased military spending. I don't think this is likely either because they can just increase military spending and no one really cares.

Kamala Harris' idol and Graham Platner's former boss just died.

Jeffrey Epstein Helped Israel Sell a Surveillance State to Côte d’Ivoire

Leaked emails show the details behind talks between Cote d’Ivoire and Israel shepherded by Ehud Barak and Jeffrey Epstein

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-israel-surveillance-state-cote-d-ivoire-ehud-barak-leaked-emails