news

I haven't been really mad about politics for the last few years but looking at israeli settler tiktoks makes me want to gouge eyes.

BREAKING: 🇦🇷 President-elect Javier Milei has appointed Rodolfo Barra as the new Attorney General of Argentina. Barra is pictured here, a member of the neo-Nazi 'Tacuara Nationalist Movement'.

https://nitter.cz/davidrkadler/status/1730648434527662472#m

lol

Average "not voting because you believe electorialism is a dead end" fan vs average "not voting because Hamas said so" enjoyer: https://nitter.cz/SoulRevision/status/1731432579113599265

https://nitter.cz/africansinnews/status/1730668049596866714:

🔴NIGER🇳🇪| The government have terminated the leasing contract with the French company which ensured 'til then the distribution of drinking water in #Niger. The activity is now entrusted to "La Nigerienne des Eaux", a national company created by decree in January 2023

We've gotten so far ahead in our election cycles that we had a 2028 presidential debate yesterday.

It's not actual ethnic cleansing if it doesn't come from the Nettoyage Ethnique region of France.

Rofl more cope news, this time from the economist

For the first time since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, it looks as if he could win. His biggest asset is Europe’s fatalism, complacency and shocking lack of strategic vision

https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1730205035592597828

The replies are pretty funny. What a pack of nonces, blaming it on Europe. British millionaires indeed.

Next Blowback season will be on Cambodia

kissinger isnt dead hes just transferring his soul to . nooo!!!!!

Chaos in south Gaza hospitals after new Israeli strikes

Hospitals in the southern Gaza Strip have descended into chaos since the resumption of the war. After eight weeks, doctors are exhausted and fuel reserves nearly gone because of Israel’s blockade.

According to the United Nations, not a single hospital in the territory’s north can operate on patients. The most seriously wounded are transferred daily to the south in convoys organised by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

But even there, the UN says, the 12 remaining hospitals are only “partially functional”.

- Al Jazeera

https://www.reddit.com/r/lgbt/comments/1889dpn/what_happens_to_lgbt_folks_who_directly_support/

"What happens to LGBT+ folks who directly support Palestinians"

Even more dystopian - and this might be a first in the history of warfare - a lot of the targets are identified by AI: for instance they "use of a system called 'Habsora' ('The Gospel'), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can 'generate' targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a 'mass assassination factory.' According to the sources, the increasing use of AI-based systems like Habsora allows the army to carry out strikes on residential homes where a single Hamas member lives on a massive scale, even those who are junior Hamas operatives."

twitter | nitter

AI-powered genocide

kissinger is still electable if you vote for him

Is it just me, or is Adeyevka falling a lot faster than Bakhmut? Or do I have that wrong, and it might drag on for months like Bakhmut did?

Israeli airstrikes have been very intense since the ceasefire broke. More than 60 Palestinians have been killed since this morning due to the ongoing Zionist air aggression in Gaza. (CW Dead Bodies)

Hamas:

Hamas, condemns Britain's intention to involve its army in the genocide against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

The Movement sees that the British army's declaration of its intention to carry out aerial reconnaissance over the Gaza Strip makes it a partner with the zionist occupation in its crimes and responsible for the massacres to which our Palestinian people are subjected.

Britain should have corrected its historical position that offends our people and atoned for the Balfour Declaration, which is considered the sin of the century, instead of committing another sin, reminding the world of its shameful colonial past, and thereby putting the British government in enmity with our people and all the free people of the world who reject the zionist aggression on Gaza.

We call on Britain to retreat from its direct participation and political and financial support for the genocide against Gaza, to stop following the United States of America and contributing to igniting wars, instead of contributing to the establishment of peace and stability in the region.

twitter | nitter

How do you pivot from a minimiser narrative to 'COVID linked to deadly diseases' without looking culpable? Simple. We're talking about new COVID, not the old one we've been encouraging you to catch.

Your Thursday Briefing

Kissinger's fucking dead.

The EU's top court has ruled that government offices across the bloc can prohibit their employees from wearing visible signs of religious belief, which I assume will be carried out equally between Jewish people and Muslim people.

Slovakian truckers will block the main border crossing with Ukraine tomorrow, joining Polish protests that complain that Ukrainian truckers offer cheaper prices for their services and can transport goods within the EU, rather than just between Ukraine and the EU, and that their governments should do something about that. Slovakia is also extending its ban on Ukrainian agricultural commodities due to the financial issues it is causing farmers.

Turkish businesses have stated their intention to keep tapping into China's market, in digital platforms, telecommunications, renewable energy, electric vehicles, cloud technology, and the defence industry, after 50 Turkish representatives visited the Supply Chain Expo. The Turkish ambassador notably said that they can help China trade with the EU, as Turkey has a free trade agreement with the EU but China does not.

Iran has confirmed that it is receiving Su-35 fighter jets, Mi-28 attack helicopters, and Yak-130 jet trainers from Russia.

China's manufacturing PMI hit 49.4 in November, down slightly from 49.5 in October; under 50 means contraction. This is about in line with global manufacturing PMI, which decreased to about 50 recently.

China and Turkmenistan have pledged to expand security cooperation, deepen counterterrorism cooperation, and jointly combat the "three forces" - separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism in Xinjiang and Central Asia, after a meeting between Vice-Primier Ding Xuexiang and President Berdimuhamedov.

An irrigation dam in Ghana reached maximum capacity and overspilled due to heavy rains, with hundreds of households affected by the downstream flooding. This comes a month after a spillage from the Akosombo Dam displaced 30,000 people.

Angola has officially opened its new Luele diamond mine, the biggest in the country and one of the biggest in the world, doubling the country's annual production. Experts warn that factors like high US interest rates (the US is 55% of world demand), weak post-pandemic recovery, and lab-grown diamond competition will reduce the revenue generated by diamonds, however.

Between 2021 and 2023, the US government conducted "counterterrorism" operations in 78 countries, down from 85 between 2018-2020, and yet you fucking tankies won't give Biden a fair shot.

The Mississippi's water levels are falling to the extent that grain barges have to carry less and less grain as there is insufficient draft - similar to what is occurring in the Amazon and Panama Canal. Higher transport costs are lowering the competitiveness of American soy and corn, leading Argentina Brazil to increasingly make gains.

Gang warfare in Haiti is spreading throughout the country, while the Kenyan police deployment continues to be delayed, as a Kenyan court recently extended orders blocking the deployment of police officers. Obviously, police have typically been very good at solving this kind of thing in the past and will likely fix the fundamental issues that caused the gang warfare to become an issue in the first place.

Venezuela has experienced nine consecutive quarters of economic growth, with extraction of oil and natural gas expanding 13% in Q3 2023.

Latin America's largest open-pit coal mine, El Cerrejon in Colombia (nicknamed "the monster" by locals), sprawls 69,000 hectares or 100,000 football pitches and produces 20 million tons of coal every year, generating $256 billion for Swiss company Glencore. Germany is importing millions of tons of coal from El Cerrejon for its energy needs after the Ukraine War started. The new Supply Chain Act, in effect since the start of 2023, requires companies to monitor human rights across their global supply chains; the locals would very much say that human rights are not being respected here.

Khamenei.ir graphics team 🔥

"Henry Kissinger was still alive??" - my wife

Financial Times: Senior CIA official posted pro-Palestine image on her Facebook

Wayback | Normal

I hate to say it, but it looks like the CIA is getting... shudder... political.

A top CIA official posted a pro-Palestine image on Facebook two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel, in a rare public political statement by a senior intelligence officer on a war that has sparked dissent within the Biden administration. The CIA’s associate deputy director for analysis changed her Facebook cover photo on October 21 to an image of a man waving a Palestinian flag that is often used in stories criticising Israel. The Financial Times has decided not to name her after the intelligence agency expressed concern about her safety.

In a separate Facebook post, the senior intelligence official also published a selfie with a sticker saying “Free Palestine” superimposed on the photograph. One person familiar with the image said it was posted to Facebook years ago and long before the current conflict.

“The officer is a career analyst with extensive background in all aspects of the Middle East and this post [of the Palestinian flag] was not intended to express a position on the conflict,” said the person familiar with the situation. This person added that the senior official had also published posts on Facebook taking a stand against antisemitism.

The CIA official did not respond to an attempt to reach her via LinkedIn but after the outreach on Monday, the pro-Palestine images and unrelated posts from the past year and a half were deleted from her page.

Four former intelligence officials expressed surprise that one of two associate deputy directors reporting to the head of analysis would post an image on Facebook showing her apparent political views on a divisive issue.

Hamas:

At dawn today, we monitored the positioning of 60 IOF soldiers inside tents, east of Juhr al-Dik. We planted 3 anti-personnel bombs in a circular pattern around their position, at exactly 4:30 the bombs were detonated. One of our forces advanced to finish off the remaining soldiers, and our forces returned safely after killing a large number of occupation soldiers.

twitter | nitter

Isntreal seems to be taking heavy losses today

I’ll never forget Kissinger’s role in undermining Jamaican sovereignty all because Manley didnt approve of US backing apartheid South Africa and didnt object to Castro’s support of Angolan decolonization. Kissinger was “obsessed” w/destroying Jamaica’s ties to Communist Cuba

Association of COVID-19 with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections in children aged 0-5 years in the USA in 2022: a multicentre retrospective cohort study

COVID-19 was associated with a significantly increased risk for RSV infections among children aged 0-5 years in 2022. Similar findings were replicated for a study population of children aged 0-5 years in 2021. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 contributed to the 2022 surge of RSV cases in young children through the large buildup of COVID-19-infected children and the potential long-term adverse effects of COVID-19 on the immune and respiratory system.

Good luck to our immune systems after a dozen infections

CGTN:

At least 10,000 civilians, including over 560 children, have been killed since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February last year, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said on Tuesday.

I get the feeling that this would have been a somber milestone if not for the fact that Israel has just killed twice as many people in 10% of the time. It really highlights just how utterly fucking genocidal Israel has been when you compare it directly to the war that has been described as "brutal" and "savage" and every other synonym for the past 18 fucking months by the Western media.

Basically, Israel refused to accept deals by Hamas that included what is left of the Bibas family, hostage bodies that were killed by indiscriminate bombing and 2 alive ones in exchange of freeing Palestinians from prisons and extending the ceasefire because they had an order from the US to continue.

Investigation labels Israel’s war in Gaza a deliberate ‘mass assassination factory’

An investigation conducted by +972 Magazine and Local Call has revealed that a loosening of restrictions on the bombing of civilian targets in Gaza, as well as the use of artificial intelligence, have been contributing factors in the huge loss of life in the enclave.

The magazine, through interviews with current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community, as well as Palestinian testimonies and other sources, found that the bombing of private residences, public buildings, high-rise blocks and similar civilian infrastructure was deliberate and intended to “create a shock” that would “lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas”, the report said, quoting one of the intelligence sources.

The sources also told the authors of the report that the Israeli army has information on most homes in Gaza, including how many civilians live in them, and yet continued to deliberately approve the killing of – in one case, hundreds of Palestinian civilians – in an attempt to assassinate one Hamas commander.

“When a three-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed – that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target,” one intelligence source was quoted as saying. “We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”

The AI system used to generate targets, meanwhile, was described by one source as a “mass assassination factory”.

- Al Jazeera

"A mass assassination factory": Inside Israel's calculated bombing of Gaza

Shoutout to all ASS lovers out there

holy shit it's real!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/11/29/henry-kissinger-dead-obituary/

NC on staggering sums to the pentagon https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/12/the-pentagon-fails-its-audit-again-and-again-and-again-and-again-and-again-and-again.html

In its most recent audit, the Pentagon was able to account for just half of its $3.8 trillion in assets (including equipment, facilities, etc). That means $1.9 trillion is unaccounted for — more than the entire budget Congress agreed to for the current fiscal year.