news

Next Blowback season will be on Cambodia

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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)

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

kissinger is still electable if you vote for him

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Peter Gelderloos (anarchist author): Israel is Committing Genocide

Pretty good. Describes the history of the genocide and its consistency and colonialist character since 1948 and before.

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

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

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

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.

Members of Israel’s Ruling Likud Party Once Planned to Assassinate Henry Kissinger

critical support?

I made the mistake of reading an article linked by naked capitalism labeled "pure cope". It is indeed. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/containment-strategy-ukraine

The most pressing is the containment of Russian forces—not only to protect all that Ukraine has already accomplished but also to render Russia’s presence on Ukrainian territory as insecure as possible. Russian positions must be continuously pressured in a forward-leaning approach.

Self-confidence requires the patient and steady pursuit of containment, never letting up on pressure applied on the Russian presence in Ukraine.

Just ideological dog shit utterly divorced from any material reality. I really want this person to explain what continuous pressure and containment mean against an opponent who has the stated objective of attriting forces as they arrive at the front.

Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

NYT

Wayback

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/11/30/7431023/

Looks like Ukraine blew up a tunnel between Russia/China. Redditors are ecstatic.

So who's the next massive piece of shit that we want to die right now? Bush? Joenocide Biden? Any "Cold War" era ghoul still alive?

Israel insists on a more rapid military collapse then, really gotta cause suffering to the bitter end of their existence.

Argentina’s Javier Milei backs away from dollarisation as central bank pick rejects role

Libertarian president-elect signals approach in keeping with ‘market situation’

The man named to lead Argentina’s central bank by libertarian president-elect Javier Milei has turned down the job over policy differences, amid signs that the South American nation’s maverick next leader is backing away from his flagship policy of dollarising the sickly economy.

Emilio Ocampo, an economic history professor and former investment banker, was the leading advocate within Milei’s team of dumping the Argentine peso in favour of the US dollar. The author of a recent paper advocating dollarisation, he had been working on a blueprint to implement the plan after the new government takes office on December 10.

Milei, an admirer of former US president Donald Trump, had said during the election campaign that Ocampo would head the central bank with a mission to close it down, adding as recently as September that dollarising the economy and shutting the bank were “not negotiable”.

But a person close to Ocampo confirmed on Thursday night local news reports that he would no longer accept the post.

“The only reason for Ocampo to be at the [central bank] was to dollarise,” the person said. “He was never going to the central bank to implement someone else’s plan, which he doesn’t agree with.”

Ocampo and Milei’s team declined to comment.

Scrapping the peso, which Milei said in an October interview was worth “less than excrement”, and “blowing up” the central bank were central to the bold plan he pitched during his campaign as a way to revitalise Argentina’s economy, slash triple-digit annual inflation and repair the public finances.

The TV economist has vowed to “take a chainsaw to the state” to balance the budget and has also promised widespread privatisation.

But Milei said in an interview on Wednesday night that while he liked Ocampo’s plan, “we need to see whether the market situation allows a solution like the one Emilio proposes, and whether he is prepared to implement a plan which is not the one he had originally planned”.

Milei’s office said on social media site X on Friday that the closure of the central bank was a “non-negotiable matter” despite “false rumours that have been spread”, without mentioning dollarisation.

Milei has not yet confirmed an alternative pick for central bank chief but local media reports have said Demian Reidel, who served as a vice-president at the institution under then-president Mauricio Macri, is being considered.

The key role of economy minister is another position not yet filled. When discussing possible appointments to the post in his Wednesday interview, Milei praised Luis Caputo, a former head of trading for Latin America at JPMorgan in the 1990s who later worked at Deutsche Bank.

Caputo was finance minister from 2017 to 2018 under the centre-right administration of Macri, who used to describe him as a “Messi of finance”, in reference to Argentina’s star footballer.

While at the ministry Caputo oversaw the issue of a 100-year sovereign bond at the peak of investor enthusiasm for Argentina, an instrument scrapped by the current Peronist government after it defaulted.

He ran the central bank for a few months in 2018 before resigning amid differences with the IMF over the conditions it set for its record-breaking $57bn bailout of the country that year.

Caputo is “a person who is able to do the job, without any doubt”, Milei said. “He has the necessary expertise to sort out the monetary problem and give it a financial market solution.”

Milei stopped short of naming Caputo to the post and local news reports say the former minister has yet to make a final decision on whether to take the job.

Local financial markets are showing increasing signs of stress as Milei works to finalise the key economy portfolios ahead of his inauguration on December 10.

The central bank is struggling to find buyers for short-term peso-denominated debt that it issues to suck local currency out of the system, signalling that its efforts to contain inflation are flagging in the face of market uncertainty.

The dollar was trading at about 1,020 pesos on the black market on Thursday, almost triple the officially fixed rate of 364 to the dollar.

Milei’s biggest challenge is to dismantle an elaborate web of price and currency controls spun by the outgoing Peronist administration without triggering hyperinflation and economic collapse.

holy shit it's real!

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

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/inmate-charged-with-attempted-murder-after-george-floyd-killer-chauvin-stabbed-2023-12-01/

WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - A federal inmate was charged on Friday with attempted murder and other offenses for allegedly stabbing Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted in the death of George Floyd, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement. The complaint alleges that while incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution Tucson, John Turscak, 52, stabbed Chauvin about 22 times "with an improvised knife," prosecutors said.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger look to form a federation (africanews, 2/12/2023)

UNRWA reports that 80% of the population in Gaza has been displaced, with over 1.7 million people forced to leave their homes in the besieged coastal enclave since October 7th.

Nitter

What is an anagram for this situation based on nice clean things?

nice ethnic slang works but I don't think that's it.

MSF: Nowhere is safe in Gaza

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is calling on the Israeli army to revoke evacuation orders it gave citizens of Gaza earlier today.

“Civilians are being ordered to move south, but nowhere in Gaza is safe due to the indiscriminate bombing and continued fighting,” the organisation wrote on its X account. “We need a sustained ceasefire now,” it added.

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.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/2/us-gives-bunker-buster-bombs-to-israel-for-war-on-gaza-report

Bunker Bombs - used to level apartment buildings.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees: "Gaza's population will soon begin dying from diseases as well as Israeli bombardment."

Over 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in📍#Gaza - including over 6,000 children and 4,000 women - since the war began.

People have lost everything and they need everything.

Gaza's population will soon begin dying from diseases as well as Israeli bombardment.

Nitter

paper asserts that satellite imaging during rollout of household responsibility system/rural decollectivization during deng does not find graphical evidence of higher agricultural yields despite official yields claiming a 43% increase over the six years from 78-84

pls president xi, lin yifu yearns for the wall