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Diplomatic and consular relations established between the Republic of Cuba and the Republic of Korea

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The establishment of diplomatic and consular relations between the Republic of Cuba and the Republic of Korea took place on February 14 through an exchange of Diplomatic Notes between the Permanent Representations of the two countries to the United Nations in New York, United States.

This milestone in bilateral history took place in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, international law and the spirit and norms of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of April 18, 1961, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba.

The study Centralidad de Asia para Cuba, published in 2021 by the Center for International Policy Research, shows that both nations had economic and commercial ties in areas such as the automotive industry, air conditioners, refrigerators, high-definition televisions and cell phones.

i wonder if this will cause problems between the DPRK and Cuba since they dont see peacefull reunification as posible anymore

So Bakhmut, Marinka, and Avdiivka are all gone. Does Ukraine actually have any other super defensible fortresses along the line of contact? As I understand it some of the fallen positions have been fortified since 2015. Doubt they can replicate them in a few weeks or months.

Death to America, of course, but at least we sometimes had the guts to send our own guys into enemy tunnels with a pistol and a flashlight like Yaldabaoth intended instead of using hostages wired with explosives and cameras like our farcical imperialist failsons the IOF

Every dead IOF soldier brings a little joy back into my life. Anyone got any?

Many news orgs in Canada are now sharing headlines about Canada, Australia, and New Zealand ordering an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to prevent further crises in Rafah, but of course the fine print buried in the article is that a ceasefire has to be on "both sides", meaning that Hamas has to surrender, disarm, and release all hostages... Of course they won't mention anything about israel withdrawing their forces or releasing Palestinian hostages.

Am I being cynical, or is this nothing new? I figured imperial core countries that have been aiding and abetting israel's genocide of Palestinians would have always supported a ceasefire based on conditions they knew were impossible, and which would make sure that israel is the victor (e.g., for Hamas to completely secede and surrender). Am I wrong?

Either way it's still and always will be.

Another Canadian happening this week is Trudeau breaking his recent silence about the israeli genocide of Palestinians, but this time it was to condemn pro-Palestinian protestors who marched by a hospital near downtown Toronto (which he claims is antisemitic targeting). Not a peep from Mr. "International Rules Based Order" about the thousands of Palestinians that israel has butchered since the ICJ's ruling that israel needs to take immediate steps to prevent collective punishment and the killing of civilians more than two weeks ago. israel has tripled down on their genocidal mission since this ruling, and the cowardly "progressive" Canadian PM will only speak up to smear a pro-peace protest.

Looks like one of the candidates in the indonesian elections todays is indonesian hitler

Massacres, invasions, and anti-communism. This is Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia's next President, involved in numerous atrocities from his days as a henchman of General Suharto.

Tweet looks like he claimed victory before the result but he is doing good in the polls

The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor clarified that, based on the received testimonies, groups of Israeli civilians, ranging from 10 to 20 individuals, were allowed to witness and record Palestinian prisoners stripped of their clothes while soldiers used metal batons and electric rods to beat them:

https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1756950353424068929

https://nitter.mint.lgbt/QudsNen/status/1756950353424068929

OpenAI just released actually good AI-generated video. The samples are actually holy fucking shit.

https://openai.com/sora

How will this affect disinformation, now that photorealistic videos can now be fabricated from a text prompt?

Also note that OpenAI is now presumably licensing its technology to the US military.

https://hexbear.net/post/1604077

I predict that in the next few months, we are going to see AI-generated videos of completely fabricated atrocities.

A bit late on the story but last month the Army HR department made an offer to infantry and armor branch officers that graduated and commissioned in 2021 to transfer into the Adjutant General, Finance or Signal Corps branches on the grounds that there's an "imbalance" in the number of personnel that needs to be corrected before it begins to effect unit readiness.

So they need like 250 people for what sounds like 1st lieutenant to captain positions, which is a decent number of people concidering the fact it's for officer positions.

From what I hear in the grapevine they got that imbalance because those branches have the most real-world equivalent jobs that are both available and pay a hell of a lot better than what an officer gets paid. So basically they get the training and some experience under their belts then dip out. Also throw in the shitty work culture and bosses the army has, and you have a recipe for a systemic retention problem.

Prigozhin and Navalny are probably up in heaven right now having the time of their lives

(Testing material I'm gonna use to annoy liberals later)

Redditor asks how Russia is surviving despite bajillion deaths from covid and war

Most of the responses are just “because propaganda”, “because authoritarianism”, “because mass wave horde”, “they’re barely surviving because sanctions are striking the country!”

Few people, outside of a Russian residents, actually talk about the financial situation inside the country lol

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1as2dyf/how_is_russia_still_functioning_considering_they/

Xi and Putin make dumplings

Xi and Putin make pancakes

The Ukraine War Runs on Lies

Nothing really new here but I like the presentation of parallels between the Vietnam War and Ukraine.

Recall in the first case that the template, that of the Cold War, is essentially unchanged, even in some of the particulars, not least in the comparisons of Ngo Dinh Diem and Volodymyr Zelensky to Winston Churchill. The South Vietnamese government (avaricious, corrupt) had the right to American arms by virtue of its right “to determine [the nation’s] future.” The Ukrainian government (avaricious, corrupt) likewise has the right, we are endlessly told, to be allowed to “shape its own destiny.”

Thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Domino Theory, long derided in the years following Vietnam, has made a comeback. Thus, President Biden’s declaration on December 6, “If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there. It’s important to see the long run here. He’s going to keep going…. Then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops,” echoes that made by President Johnson in July 1965:

This is really war. It is guided by North Viet-Nam and it is spurred by Communist China. Its goal is to conquer the South, to defeat American power, and to extend the Asiatic dominion of communism. There are great stakes in the balance. Most of the non-Communist nations of Asia cannot, by themselves and alone, resist the growing might and the grasping ambition of Asian communism.

In the inscrutable authoritian US regime today news has leaked that Lindsey Graham, a dissident voice in the Senate state organ, has come out against further state-funded support of Ukraine thereby foiling the goals of the bloodthirsty despot Joe Biden.

Independent USian experts have regretfully concluded that execution by anti-aircraft guns will be the likely punishment doled out by the vengeful leadership of the rogue state, as is tradition.

Norm tweet...

Will the NY Times win a special Oscar for "Best Supporting Role in Israel's Genocide"?

Nitter

Former German spy chief founds new right-wing party

https://archive.is/ZqkKh

Ian Miles Cheong, twomad, Navalny in one month.

Soon.

Here's a site that tracks how many "likes" milei has given in a single day on twitter: https://milei.nulo.ar/?ref=x

Most of them are to bluecheck libertarians that act as secondary spokespersons and right-wing media like La Nacion and LaDerechaDiario (which is the dark counterpart of La Izquierda Diario, the trot-run site). Our man is terminally online.

UK Labour under Starmer seem to be calling for a ceasefire now? not sure what changed, is the official Palestinian to Israeli exchange rate like 30k : 1.2k for them?

Lula's twitter post after meeting with the Arab League:

"I return to Cairo in the context of the terrible humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas attack on October 7 against Israeli civilians is indefensible and deserved Brazil's strong condemnation. Israel's disproportionate and indiscriminate reaction is unacceptable and constitutes one of the most tragic episodes of this long conflict. The human and material losses are irreparable. We cannot trivialize the deaths of thousands of civilians as mere collateral damage. In Gaza, there are almost 30,000 fatalities, mostly children, the elderly and women. 80% of the population has been forced to leave their homes. The situation in the West Bank, which was already critical, is also becoming untenable."

"At a time when the Palestinian people need support the most, rich countries have decided to cut humanitarian aid to the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The recent allegations against the agency's staff need to be properly investigated, but they cannot paralyze it. Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon will also be left destitute. This inhumanity and cowardice must be stopped. The federal government (Brazil's govement) will provide new funding for UNRWA."

"We call on all countries to maintain and increase their contributions. The most urgent task is to establish a definitive ceasefire that allows for the provision of sustainable and unimpeded humanitarian aid and the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages. The persistence of the conflict in Palestine goes far beyond the Middle East."

"We proposed and defended resolutions in the Security Council, which we chaired in October. We support the case brought before the International Court of Justice by South Africa on the application of the Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is urgent to stop the killing. Brazil's position is clear. There will be no peace until there is a Palestinian state, within mutually agreed and internationally recognized borders, which include the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital."

"The decision on the existence of an independent Palestinian state was taken 75 years ago by the United Nations. There are no more excuses to prevent Palestine from joining the UN as a full member. The resumption of peace negotiations is a universal cause. And it is our cause. I renew my wishes of peace and prosperity to all."

Uh aktually, Germany isn't the sick man of Europe. It's just the unfit man of Europe: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/Economy/german-fm-describes-german-economy-as-an--unfit-man

if a nuke falls i'm calling out of work

This is really good. Nothing most people here don't already know, I think, but it puts recent history and ideological and geopolitical shifts of the whole region into a really clear and succinct picture IMO. I think it'd be good to throw at people who are suffering from some Western ignorance but aren't fully committed to the liberal/imperialist narrative to the point where the blinders have to be violently pried from their eyes.

BreakThrough News: The Struggle to Liberate Palestine is a Battle for the Future of Humanity, w/ Matteo Capasso

Rania Khalek has been killin' it lately!

How tf is Ukraine losing? They just sunk that one Russian ship. Shouldn't they be winning overwhelmingly after that?

: Low unemployment and high stocks means the economy is fantastic, jack

:

An update regarding one of my older posts to a megathread:

The South African/Palestinian journalist Haidar Eid is actually alive after total radio silence for nearly 2 months - He has escaped back to South Africa and is confirmed to be a guest speaker at the SAJFP's "Shabbat Against Genocide" in Johannesburg this Friday

Israel-Lebanon border plan

France has made a proposal to Lebanon to bring an end to the confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel. The dpa learned this from Lebanese government circles on Tuesday. The proposal therefore calls for Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters from the border - to a distance of around ten kilometers. The border region is to be monitored by the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers. The proposal was developed together with government representatives from the USA, Qatar and Egypt. There was initially no official confirmation from Lebanon or France. Hezbollah circles said that they had not officially received any paper with suggestions.

Le evil French scheming again

quite funny: the top seven, yes seven, articles featured on Reuters' site are about Navalny

https://www.reuters.com/world

deliberately starving the poor to own the socialists:

More hunger, less money: Argentina's soup kitchens count rations

At community meal centres across Argentina, a dual crisis is biting: the influx of ever more hungry mouths to feed during an economic crisis, and a decision by President Javier Milei's new government to freeze their aid.

In an Argentine soup kitchen, empty plastic containers are piling up from hungry visitors, and the cooks are worried their limited supply of pasta will not be enough to fill them. "I don't know if we will make it today," frets 50-year-old Carina López, who manages the ‘Las hormiguitas viajeras’ community dining hall in Loma Hermosa, a poor neighbourhood in San Martín, north of Buenos Aires. She points to empty crates normally filled with fruit and vegetables. Today, those coming for a hot meal will only get plain pasta and a small piece of pork.

Meal centres like this one are facing a dual crisis: the influx of ever more hungry mouths to feed during an economic crisis, and a decision by President Javier Milei's new government to freeze their aid. Tens of thousands of such community organisations in Argentina received their last batch of food from the government in November, before Milei – a far-right libertarian, self-described "anarcho-capitalist" – was inaugurated. Milei's government says it plans to audit the needs of each individual soup kitchen to put in place a system of direct aid, and excluding intermediaries such as social movements he describes as "poverty managers."

These "poverty managers" are social orgs that feed the needy in community centres, they are often accused of "getting money from the government" at the "expense of the poor", while also "using the poor for electoral campaigns" in the sense of clientelism. Of course this is bullshit, and clientelism is nothing but classism, thinking that the poor and the needy are just brainless bots who receive food in exchange for votes or for taking part in a rally or something. These are people with their own interests who are more than capable of pressuring whoever they want to get whatever they need. Furthermore, the absolute majority of these orgs are created and maintained by the poor themselves, that is: self-organisation, exactly what they fear and don't like at all, the poor organizing. Cutting aid is another way to discipline the poor, which in this country constitutes a social class of it's own.

Sure, let's just say that there are irregularities with these orgs in the way they receive aid, just for a moment. Okay, but the solution is not to cul ALL aid to feeding centers which people DEPEND ON TO EAT.

"There will be an innovative method so that help arrives where it is supposed to," Milei's Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni said. The soup kitchens, which typically provide more than 100 portions a day, have waited months on that innovation while battling to survive off some municipal aid and donations. López said she had been told by authorities to either "cut the soup kitchen's days, or kick people out." "But I can't kick anyone out. There are new people. New elderly people."

'The situation is beyond me'

Argentina faces annual inflation of over 250 percent with almost half the country now living in poverty after decades of economic mismanagement. Milei, elected on a wave of fury last November, has vowed a painful turnaround and embarked on massive spending cuts. He also started his term by devaluing the long-overvalued peso by more than 50 percent and cutting state subsidies on fuel and transport – further hitting the poor.

One of the new visitors to the soup kitchen in San Martín is Daniel Barreto, 33, a bricklayer who like others is struggling to find contract jobs with many construction sites at a standstill after the government froze all new public works. Meanwhile, private companies are hiring less because of the economic crisis.

The wages Barreto does manage to scrape together are nonetheless eaten away by inflation. "However much I do or don't work, the money is not enough. I have a wife and four kids," he said. "The situation is beyond me." The social movements who run the soup kitchens – born of a strong sense of community – say the number of people resorting to them has risen at least 50 percent.

"And that has only just started," said Melissa Cáceres, a member of a local group co-ordinating the soup kitchen who is registered with the Libres del Sur group. Often families will send in a child to pick up some food, to avoid being seen. Argentina counts some 38,000 so-called "community dining halls," said Celeste Ortiz, spokeswoman for the Barrios de Pie social movement.

Minister under fire

In February, Argentina's conference of bishops called for "all spaces which give food... to receive help without delay." Last week, hundreds of people lined up along 30 blocks after Human Capital Minister Sandra Pettovello told social movements complaining about the lack of food aid that anyone who was hungry should come "one by one" to see her. She did not come out to see them.

That minister legit said this. She told starving people to meet her "one by one", literally the next day thousands showed up in the Ministry asking for a conference with her, but of course, these people mobilized with their own orgs. They thought they can manipulate and humilliate the poor, but this is not the case. And while the number of poor people is increasing in numbers, the organization of said people is also increasing. They're creating a monster they simply cannot contain or defeat.

Pettovello is currently the target of a lawsuit from a union leader over her Ministry's failure to deliver food. The government has taken pains to show that Milei's mass deregulation of the economy will not hit the most vulnerable, doubling the value of food vouchers handed out to families. In recent days, Pettovello has sealed aid programmes worth more than half a million dollars with evangelical churches and the Caritas Catholic charity. However, Caritas has spoken out against the government's selective aid, saying "a country where poverty is increasing cannot tolerate partisan opinions, ideological prejudices and sectoral struggles."

While she is grateful for the Church's support, Cáceres regrets that "it seems that there are intermediaries who are worthwhile and others who are not.” As the battle continues, the cooks in the San Martín soup kitchen breathe a sigh of relief after stretching their rations to feed all those who needed it for one more day. Carina López sighs with relief: 130 rations were distributed in the dining hall and everyone received a full lunch.

At the end of the day, it's all projection from them. Brainwormed milei has spent his entire campaign (and years before that) saying that the left loves to starve people because reasons, yet he's the one destroying everyone's income AND cutting aid to feeding centers for the poor. Who starves who now? Motherfucker. Hexbear taught me an important lesson these days, every accusation they make is actually a confession.

said France is willing to recognize a Palestinian state

French lawmakers voted in 2014 to urge their government to recognise Palestine, a symbolic move that had little impact on France's diplomatic stance.

Macron's comments were the first time a French leader had made such a suggestion and highlighted further impatience among Western leaders as casualties mount in Gaza...

"Our partners in the region, notably Jordan, are working on it, we are working on it with them. We are ready to contribute to it, in Europe and in the Security Council. The recognition of a Palestinian state is not a taboo for France," Macron said alongside Jordan's King Abdullah II in Paris.

"We owe it to the Palestinians, whose aspirations have been trampled on for too long. We owe it to the Israelis who lived through the greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century. We owe it to a region that longs to escape the promoters of chaos and the those who sow revenge," he said.

Macron's comments are likely aimed at adding pressure on Israel.

Quote tweets and replies to this are amazing - just a bunch of libs going insane at Rashida for the crime of... doing tiny and inconsequentional gestures that would put some pressure on Biden if Biden wasn't an insane person to begin with.

Egypt Builds Border Wall in Gaza to Contain Palestinians

Egyptian authorities are enclosing a vast area of the Sinai Desert spanning over 20 square kilometers with large concrete walls.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Egypt is building a large concrete wall on its border with the Gaza Strip to contain a potential influx of Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombings.

Egyptian authorities are enclosing a vast area of the Sinai Desert spanning over 20 square kilometers with large concrete walls near the Gaza border, the newspaper asserts, citing Egyptian officials and security analysts as sources.

It is described as a massive new complex to bolster the country's security in the event that "a large number of Gaza residents manage to enter" if an Israeli offensive erupts in the southern part of the Strip, in the border city of Rafah.

Egypt has already been trying to bolster security along the border in recent months to keep Palestinians away, deploying soldiers and armored vehicles and reinforcing fences.

The Wall Street Journal published satellite photographs taken by the company Planet Labs PBC showing earth movements in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, next to Gaza, within an area designated as a walled enclosure for the possible location of a Palestinian refugee camp.

Over 100,000 people could be housed in the camp, which is surrounded by concrete walls and far from any Egyptian settlement. A large number of tents have been delivered to the site.

The construction of this wall comes as Israel continues its military offensive along the Gaza Strip, and fears increase that the country will launch an attack on Rafah.

Thousands of Palestinians living in Gaza have moved to Rafah to protect themselves from Israeli attacks that began in the north of that territory but have spread throughout the Strip.

Notoriously corrupt Indonesia seems to keep having an issue with poll workers "dying from exhaustion".

2024 voting day marred by reports of violations

The Elections Supervisory Agency has received thousands of reports of election fraud that occurred on the Feb. 14 voting day, ranging from intimidation of poll workers and voters to double voting and glitches of the official vote tallying platform.

2024 Over 20 poll workers die of exhaustion, says KPU

2019 More than 300 election workers, police officers in Indonesia die of exhaustion

2014 - 150 workers died from similar causes during the 2014 presidential and legislative elections

Palestinian Factions To Seek Reconciliation in Russian Meeting

Russia has always supported the Palestinian aspiration to create an independent state within the borders prior to the 1967 Six-Day War.

On Friday, Russia announced a reconciliation meeting in Moscow between the main Palestinian factions, from the secular Fatah party to the Islamist movement Hamas.

"We have invited all Palestinian representatives, all political forces... There will be 12 to 14 organizations," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said, adding that the meeting will take place between February 29 and March 1-2.

Bogdanov emphasized that Moscow has sent invitations to groups that are part of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), but also to others such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movement.

He stressed that the aim of these consultations is to pave the way for Palestinians to unite politically, noting that for Moscow, the PLO remains "the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."

Representing Hamas will be its political bureau member, Musa Abu Marzouq, announced Abdel Hafiz Nofal, Palestinian ambassador to Moscow. Fatah will be represented by Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of the PLO executive committee.

The Islamic Jihad movement also accepted the invitation to participate in the intra-Palestinian consultations. The President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, urged Hamas this week to "quickly complete" an agreement to exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners to prevent "the evils of another catastrophe" in Gaza and a massive displacement of Palestinians similar to that of 1948.

In the current war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza - the second longest in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948 - nearly two million Palestinians in the Strip have been forced to evacuate their homes as the Israeli offensive advanced in response to the brutal attack by the Islamist movement on October 7 against its territory.

Russia has been waiting for a visit to Moscow by Abbas, whose influence in the mediation process between Israel and Hamas is almost nil, as it does not act as an interlocutor nor has direct control over Gaza, where Hamas ousted the PNA from power in 2007.

Weeks ago, Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov had expressed hope of bringing together representatives of the main Palestinian organizations in Moscow soon to overcome their divisions.

Similar reconciliation consultations took place in 2019 and 2017, when Fatah and Hamas demanded that Abbas form a national unity government.

Russia has always supported the Palestinian aspiration to create an independent state within the borders prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, with its capital in East Jerusalem and in accordance with UN resolutions.