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What are the odds Bibi the Baby Killer has dirt on Musk?

Your Tuesday Briefing

Over the last seven years, fossil fuel companies have pumped £150 million into British universities - with two thirds going to Oxford, Cambridge, and Imperial College London - to spread fossil fuel propaganda and even fighting back against "anti-oil rhetoric".

Germany has been stuck in a budgetary crisis since mid-November, when the top German court struck down an accounting trick that opened a €60 billion hole in public finances. Scholz' government tried to transfer €60 billion of unused borrowing capacity from the pandemic budget to a climate and transformation fund that would also finance German industry modernization; and, as part of the scheme, the "debt brake" which prevents new borrowing, which was suspended during the pandemic, would be restored.

Niger's government has repealed a 2015 anti-migration law that curbed the smuggling of people through Niger into Europe, as people wishing to enter Europe often go through Niger to reach Libya and Algeria. The leadership repealed it because it "did not take into account the interests of Niger and its citizens", and thus erases previous convictions under the law. While it was somewhat effective in reducing migrant flows, it mainly had the effect of shifting those flows to much more dangerous desert routes that aren't being watched by authorities. Some residents of Agadez have welcomed the law, as they made thousands of dollars per month driving migrants through the desert. Obviously, Europe and human rights experts are rather unhappy.

Fiji is attempting to achieve rice self-sufficiency within the next two decades. China has previously helped in this regard, rejuvenating five local rice varieties in Fiji and introduced 16 Chinese rice varieties, and training over 4000 local agricultural officials anf farmers.

CropWatch, a remote agricultural monitoring system developed in 1998 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences for domestic use is now a global initiative, using satellites and ground stations to measure crop yields and environmental changes and publishing bulletins multiple times per year on global agriculture trends. China wishes to export the technology to even more developing countries in order to supplant Western monitoring methods, as those countries otherwise do not have the resources to set up their own monitoring systems.

Since the attempted coup in 2018, Nicaragua has been denied international funding, even from the ghoulish IMF - despite their good track record of using it properly and without corruption - as the US has tried to collapse their economy for committing the cardinal sin of being a left wing government trying to alleviate poverty. These sorts of tactics worked in 1990, but now, the country is better prepared, fought coronavirus and two hurricanes largely by itself, and has succeeded in cutting poverty down to 25%, lower than its neighbours except Panama, has 77 hospitals compared to 29 in Costa Rica and 18 in Panama, which are significantly wealthier, and is experiencing the highest economic growth in Central America.

The US and China have simultaneously pushed for their visions of what a global supply chain ought to look like:

China has launched its first international expo on supply chains, featuring various American tech giants and, in total, 20-25% of the registered overseas exhibitors came from America. Premier Li Qiang vowed efforts to build closer supply chain ties in all countries, in order to retain foreign investment despite de-risking rhetoric from the West. On one hand, this de-risking is largely illusory, as Chinese exports are merely going through third countries like Mexico before entering the United States. On the other hand, foreign direct investment into China is actually taking a hit, with China's first ever quarterly deficit in direct investment liabilities in 2023 Q3. Regardless, China unveiled a series of measures which include removing investment barriers in the manufacturing sector and opening up some parts of the digital economy, and also expanding visa-free entry to more countries.

Mere hours before this, not to be outdone, Biden inaugurated the first meeting of his supply-chain resilience council, announcing 30 new actions "to strengthen supply chains critical to America's economic and national security," to spur domestic production of medicine, for example, to create new tools to monitor supply chains, and in general derisk/decouple from China further.

Breaking: Gunter is a trainbro

Israel hijacked and captured MoTaz's drone

Israeli army intercepted our drone and moved to behind the Israeli line We were trying to film and show the destruction they made to the East of Khan Younis

Al Mayadeen always find the shittiest photos for Biden lmao. The actual article is whatever: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/-israel--questions-joe-biden-s-loyalty--despite-complicity-i

FINALLY

Broke: 2 state solution is the only true solution for peace. Both sides bad.

Woke: Hamas agreed to have 1967, which differs from the 1948 borders

Really hate that Hamas is presented as this extremely violent and radical Islamist group because they have a scary Arabic name when clearly based on all evidence they are more of a pragmatic resistance group than anything else. As much as I dont necessarily like right wing muslim brotherhood politics in general (my nation have parties inspired by muslim brotherhood, that being said they are not ISIS more comparable to conservative christians imo, )Hamas is still a rational actor who are willing to negotiate. Hell they even stood up for their communist ally PFLP so they are better than most islamist groups already.

Meanwhile Israel wants to genocide palestinians so much desperate Palestinians cant even convert to judaism to gain better treatment. I guess some asshole Israeli heard about Taqqiya and afraid of "infiltration" by palestinians, even though the concept of Taqqiya is mostly about hiding your actual identity/beliefs to avoid persecution

John Helmer on the big beautiful boaters breaching the blockade https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/11/the-thousand-boat-blockade-busting-operation-changes-everything-on-the-gaza-front-if-it-materialises.html

As usual with his articles there is a lot of diplomatic inside baseball, this time mostly about turkey using this flotilla to dickwave in Cyprus as well as Russian state support of Israel vs popular opinion. The article concludes on a down note:

“Let us say a Turkish aid flotilla materialises and gets to the new port and marina the Turks have built in North Cyprus. There are several problems with that. Small craft, especially leisure yachts and motor boats cannot ply the Eastern Med during the storm weather from December until April. Moreover, if Hamas is running the current ceasefire, it does not want Erdogan to give a reason for Israel to break it. A flotilla is therefore just PR at this stage.”

🎶🎶🎶

Henry Kissinger, I'm not missing 'yer

I'm so happy you are dead.

May you suffer for an eternity

For the evil life you led.

So say hello to Hitler, Reagan and Pol Pot

I hope that you're now all

in a place that's burning hot.

Henry Kissinger, I'm not missing 'yer

I'm glad you burn in hell.

🎶🎶🎶

This tweet is 3 hours old and it has video. I think "BREAKING" might be a very big lie and the video is ~4 weeks old. Anyway - the vid does seem to be real.

BREAKING: Pro-Palestine students at Columbia University disrupt a class taught by Hillary Clinton called "Inside the Situation Room."

Students have also been walking out of her lecture in protest of her support for Israel.

Nitter

Video - https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1729937249515581440/vid/avc1/480x852/2cvEapn9FmKTqo6J.mp4?tag=14

I hate lying tweets.

West Bank raids continue under cover of darkness

Zein Basravi reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank

We’re hearing of raids in villages around Jenin where Israeli vehicles that were carrying out raids there were targeted with pipe bombs. There are confrontations north of Tulkarem. We’re also hearing of ongoing raids in Qalqilya.

At least 60 people were detained throughout the course of today. Sixty detentions a day in the occupied West Bank – in raids and at checkpoints – has become a daily average.

The number of raids is going up in intensity and frequency since the beginning of the war with most of these actions carried out at night under the cover of darkness.

- Al Jazeera

I fear that Derek Chauvin getting stabbed will turn out for the worse overall. I can see future high profile police abuse cases resulting in no prison time because it would be "too dangerous" for them inside.

I hope he can see these in hell:

Some of these anti-Netanyahu protests are pretty massive: https://nitter.cz/AoR3138/status/1731019724383723689

Essequibo Referendum Is a National Awakening: President Maduro

“Today we are not voting as the opposition or the ruling party... We are voting as Venezuela, with one color, one flag, and one feeling,” he stressed.

During a press conference held after casting his vote, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that the referendum is an extraordinary moment in the country's electoral history because all the factors come together in a single force: the defense of the Venezuelan rights on the Essequibo territory.

“As Venezuelans, today we are not voting as the opposition or the ruling party. We are not voting as center, left or right. We are not voting red, blue, white or green. Today we are voting as Venezuela, with one color, one flag and one feeling,” he said.

Maduro highlighted that the consultative referendum on the Guayana Essequiba has prompted “an awakening of the national spirit of which the Liberator Simon Bolivar spoke about.”

Maduro highlighted that the consultative referendum allows Venezuela to take the initiative in the process of asserting its rights through “a powerful consensus in a feeling of defense of what is ours and a rejection of the dispossession carried out by the British Empire.”

He also stressed that citizen participation in this democratic process strengthens the nation in the face of recent aggressions by the government of Guyana and the empires.

“I am confident and optimistic. Starting today we will emerge stronger as a country to speak hard, clearly and powerfully,” he noted, highlighting that the world will see the power of Venezuelan men and women when exercising their right to vote.

Finally, the Bolivarian leader sent a message of unity directed towards citizens who have not yet decided whether they will participate in the referendum.

“Let's put aside pettiness, sectarianism and partisanship. It is Venezuela time. It is Venezuela day. It is the day of the people's free expression."

Really doubt Maduro will actually invade Guyana. Venezuela is only doing this now because the US wanted to build military bases around the Venezuelan border since they can't use Brazil or Colombia territory anymore as their base for a land invasion of Venezuela.

There any water to the rumblings I've been seeing that Venezuela is planning to invade Guyana? Seems kinda threadbare on official channels so far

The more you hate FakeNews the stronger we get

Intercepted Podcast: Month Two, Phase One of the Gaza War

"Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida is... perhaps the singular most popular figure in the Middle East."

What do you think of that statement? The interviewee Mouin Rabbani said that. I have no context because I only understand English so that was the first time I remember hearing or seeing Obaida's name. I only started paying attention to Rabbani a few days ago when I noticed Norm Finkelstein retweeted him a bunch of times.

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I'll leave this stuff here.

Mouin Rabbani (@MouinRabbani)

Abu Obaida (Hamas)

Abu Obaida (Arabic: أبو عبيدة, romanized: Abū ʿUbayda), also spelled Abu Obayda, Abu Ubayda and Abu Ubaydah, is the nom de guerre of a Palestinian militant who is the spokeperson for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamist Palestinian political and military organization Hamas.

Blasting crab rave on repeat and I don't care who hears