news

Everyone should read this post on how finance, bonds and the power of the US dollar actually works by @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net. This is a highly readable and clear description of arcane and opaque mechanisms that are critical to appreciate to have a good understanding of modern imperialism.

Please respond in that subthread, not here.

FIFA and UEFA to uphold ban on Russia from participating in international competitions at least until the 2026 FIFA World Cup

Meanwhile, FIFA and UEFA member "israel" killed a fuckton of FIFA-registered palestinian players in Gaza, dismantling a FIFA-regulated tournament in the process as well. You can sit comfortably waiting for them to take action against the zionist entity.

death to "israel"

More than one-third of American-Jewish teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18 agree with the statement, "I sympathise with Hamas"

vs

A majority, 66 percent, said that they sympathise with the Palestinian people as a whole.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/one-third-american-jewish-teens-say-they-sympathise-hamas-israeli-government-poll-shows

Young american jews support the resistance in great numbers.

https://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1858019192370507904

Wow, looks like Xi was extremely straightforward during his meeting with Biden, probably the most he's ever officially been in a meeting with a US president.

According to the Chinese readout (https://www.guancha.cn/internation/2024_11_17_755645.shtml) here's what he told Biden were the 7 "lessons of the past 4 years that need to be remembered":

1. "There must be correct strategic understanding. The 'Thucydides Trap' is not historical destiny, a 'new Cold War' cannot and should not be fought, containment of China is unwise, undesirable, and will not succeed."

2. "Words must be trustworthy and actions must be fruitful. A person cannot stand without credibility. China always follows through on its words, but if the U.S. side always says one thing and does another, it is very detrimental to America's image and damages mutual trust."

3. "Treat each other as equals. In exchanges between two major countries like China and the United States, neither side can reshape the other according to their own wishes, nor can they suppress the other based on so-called 'position of strength,' let alone deprive the other of legitimate development rights to maintain their own leading position."

4. "Red lines and bottom lines cannot be challenged. As two major countries, China and the United States inevitably have some contradictions and differences, but they cannot harm each other's core interests, let alone engage in conflict and confrontation. The One China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués are the political foundation of bilateral relations and must be strictly observed. Taiwan issue, democracy and human rights, development path, and development rights are China's four red lines, which cannot be challenged. These are the most important guardrails and safety nets for China-US relations."

5. "There should be more dialogue and cooperation. Under current circumstances, the common interests between China and the United States have not decreased but increased. Whether in areas of economy and trade, agriculture, drug control, law enforcement, public health, or in facing global challenges such as climate change and artificial intelligence, as well as international hotspot issues, China-US cooperation is needed. Both sides should extend the list of cooperation, make the cooperation cake bigger, and achieve win-win cooperation."

6. "Respond to people's expectations. The development of China-US relations should always focus on the wellbeing of both peoples and gather the strength of both peoples. Both sides should build bridges for personnel exchanges and cultural communication, and also remove interference and obstacles, not artificially create a 'chilling effect.'"

7. "Demonstrate great power responsibility. China and the United States should always consider the future and destiny of humanity, take responsibility for world peace, provide public goods for the world, and play a positive role in world unity, including engaging in positive interaction, avoiding mutual consumption, and not coercing other countries to take sides."

Funnily, all this is summarized in the official US readout (https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/readout-of-president-joe-bidens-meeting-with-president-xi-jinping-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china-3/) with this short sentence: "The two leaders reviewed the bilateral relationship over the past four years". Talk about an understatement 😅. The language compared to the readout of the last Xi-Biden meeting in San Francisco one year ago is noticeably more forthright, especially on the U.S.'s lack of trustworthiness ("if the U.S. side always says one thing and does another..."). Looks like he's getting very frustrated with U.S. duplicity... The 4 red lines he enumerates are also new (not new individually as they've each been mentioned before, but packaging them together as "four red lines" and explicitly labeling them as such in a president-level diplomatic readout is new)

...

With the red lines on "Democracy and human rights" and "Development path/system", it looks like China is effectively telling the U.S. it will not humor them anymore in discussions about its internal system and so-called "human rights", and that it will consider any U.S. initiative aimed at interfering with China's internal affairs or otherwise shape China as hostile actions on the same level as Taiwan. This is also clear with Xi telling Biden that "neither side can reshape the other according to their own wishes".

On development rights Xi states that "the Chinese people's right to development cannot be deprived or ignored" and criticizes how "while all countries have national security needs, the concept shouldn't be overgeneralized or used as an excuse for malicious restrictions and suppression". He also said that "great power competition should not be the theme of the era; unity and cooperation are needed to overcome difficulties together. 'Decoupling and breaking chains" is not the solution; mutually beneficial cooperation is the path to common development. 'Small yards with high fences' is not befitting of great powers."

In other words, he's telling Biden that he believes the U.S. is attempting to curtail China's development in the guise of national security, but that this is "an excuse for malicious restrictions and suppression" and a red line as China has a fundamental right to develop as any other country. This is all, of course, also signaling to the upcoming Trump administration. The fact these are "red lines" means they're non-negotiable regardless of who leads the US: he's telling Trump too that attempts to "reshape" China or restrict its development will be viewed as hostile actions. And the emphasis on US "saying one thing and doing another" also puts the future administration on notice that China will judge the US by its actions rather than its diplomatic statements.

Conclusion: by framing these positions as "lessons learned" from the past four years, Xi is effectively closing the book on one approach to US-China relations - which he's obviously very critical about - and very clearly signaling to Trump a change is badly needed, particularly around the "4 red lines" and matching words with actions. The language is very confident, telling the U.S. they need to "treat each other as equals" and that they have no "position of strength" anymore. The US readout on this, as usual for the Biden administration, is very illustrative of exactly what Xi is complaining about: a complete disregard for China's stance on these issues and a refusal to engage with them, or even mention them at all. Not sure that "America first" Trump and the team of China hawks he put together will be much better...

Gangs looting Gaza aid operate in areas under Israeli control, aid groups say

A U.N. memo obtained by The Post concluded that gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from Israel’s military.

One gang leader, the memo said, established a “military like compound” in an area “restricted, controlled and patrolled by the IDF.”

Israel is stealing what little aid they "let through".

And they could have just made a fucking deal a month into the war.

Handala, an Iranian hacker group, in revenge for the killing of Yahya Sinwar, hacked the infamous 'Israeli' 8200 intelligence unit and released the info of over 35,000 Mossad, Shin Bet and other security establishment employees.

PDF of the leak: https://files.catbox.moe/3l1lkm.pdf

Israel levelled multiple multi storey apartment buildings in Beirut, Lebanon last night/early this morning, and the scenes are apocalyptic. No evacuation order was given for this bombing, many were sleeping in the early hours of the morning when the buildings that they were sleeping in were destroyed. Hundreds of probable casualties.

Daytime footage twitter and xcancel mirror

Night search footage twitter and xcancel mirror

Ground view of night search footage, to put the scale of destruction into perspective twitter and xcancel mirror

How it started: I WILL NOT MAKE DEALS WITH COMMUNISTS

How it ended:

Educational post: here we will debunk the myth of China’s dollar-denominated bonds in Saudi Arabia for those who are interested in learning about how the system actually works, and those who need a little help with connecting the dots.

A few months ago, some multipolar bloggers were jumping up and down about Saudi Arabia “ending its 50-year petrodollar contract” and how that is going to “end dollar hegemony” (I already wrote a whole post debunking that). Today we see the same people saying that China issuing dollar-denominated bonds in Saudi Arabia is actually genius and how that’s going to “end dollar hegemony”. So which one is it?

The answer is neither, and far simpler than you think. But to even be able to answer this question, we need to learn a bit about the fundamentals of the financial system, and especially to debunk the many misconceptions about the role of US treasury.

Don’t worry, I have deliberately stripped all technical jargons from this post, so anyone will be able to understand even if you know nothing about banking and finance. This post is meant to be educational - I firmly believe that learning about how the economy and the financial system operate can shield us from falling for right wing propaganda, and that is my goal of spending many hours writing this post here.

First, let’s lay out the main misconceptions that have been perpetuated on social media about the China’s dollar bond in Saudi Arabia, and what questions do we need to answer:

1. The misconception that the US government is financed by its treasury bonds (China is issuing dollar bonds at nearly the same rates, so investors will buy China bonds instead of US treasury bonds, so the US government can no longer finance its spending)
   • Question: What is the role of US treasuries?
2. A wild extrapolation that a $2 billion bond issuance somehow serves as a prelude to China issuing a $100 billion dollar bond which will then subvert the entire US treasury market.
   • Question: What can a $100 billion dollar bond do if China issues that?
3. The mental gymnastics involved to craft a narrative about why China issuing its bond in dollar in Saudi Arabia is actually good and that somehow is going to help the BRI countries pay back their dollar debt.
   • Questions: What is the intent behind China issuing dollar-denominated bond in Saudi Arabia? Can it really help Belt and Road countries pay back their dollar debt?

Let’s go through this point by point.

What is the role of US treasuries?

around a dozen inmates have set themselves on fire over the last year or so to try to get transferred out of virginia's supermax Red Onion prison after facing horrific racism and violence. three men interviewed intentionally set their legs or feet on fire knowing that there aren't any burn centers in that part of the state and they would have to be sent to Richmond for treatment

The NYT has leaked a story by accidentally CC'ing Electronic Intifada.

Apparently, they killed a "visual investigation" into the recent Israeli hooligans in the Netherlands, presumably because it would go against their narrative of anti-Semitism at the event. Keep in mind that it was the Times that recently claimed a video of Israeli fans attacking a Dutch citizen was the opposite.

Corbyn's take yesterday:

I happened to notice a Reddit article about Bird Flu and all the libs are just blaming Trump. He isn't even president and Biden has been ignoring the bird flu for over a year now, with articles coming out every month about how Biden is doing NOTHING.

BlueMAGA is already getting incredibly powerful, I am now becoming hopeful that there will be a liberal Jan 6th.

'Same dog with a different leash,' says Che Guevara's daughter about Trump's victory in the US election

Telesur Aleida Guevara expresó preocupación por reciente actitud de Lula hacia Venezuela

A guy on Iraqi Telegram went viral for trying to start a boycott campaign against businesses that employ non-Iraqis. He calls himself a far right Iraqi who is angry about Syrian and Lebanese people taking jobs from Iraqis. Literally every medium-sized restaurant has non-Iraqis working there lol. He's also mad that the football national team has a half-Pakistani player, because the advanced Semitic Iraqi race should not procreate with the lesser races. Everyone dunked on him and called him a loser, happy that this brainrot hasn't penetrated Iraq yet. His Telegram page made it to 500 followers before getting trolled to closure. Btw, I'm making an Iraq trip with my wife and the kid in the spring, you'll get a full report in the news mega when it's time.

The claimed number of North Koreans is now at six figures and rising.

I forgot I was on Hexbear for a moment and was very confused as to why I was reading a reasonable breakdown of the situation in Ukraine.

The Hīkoi mō te Tiriti arrived in Wellington NZ today. The haka went viral the other day, but this is the bigger story of the public mobilisation against the bill introduced by our right-wing, reactionary, ACT party.

71-year old isntreali mythologist eliminated in Gaza. He fought against the resistance in the first intifada and dedicated his life to legitimizing the apartheid state. He will not be missed, rest in piss

The latest TrueAnon episode with Seth harp on Afghanistan opium is very worth listening to. It covers the role of the Taliban and of the US in world opium production and distribution. Apparently, the 2000s saw the amount of opium production in Afghanistan increase by a factor of 50x or so, to the point that world supply increased by 10-20x. Absolutely staggering hearing Seth lay out the connection between invasion, waste of lives and money, in service of turning a country into a narco state. Just brutal.

I posted this in the dying hours of the last thread and I think it is funny enough to repost

What a contrast here

A few days ago a new Chinese built port was inaugurated by xi

In an opinion article in the El Peruano state newspaper, Xi said the Chancay project would generate $4.5 billion in annual revenues, create more than 8,000 direct jobs and reduce the logistics costs of the Peru-China route by 20%.

China's main motivation for developing the megaport, according to Ocharan, was access to neighboring Brazil, where a new railway line is planned to carry Brazilian exports such as soybeans and iron ore to the port.

The rail project is estimated to cost $3.5 billion, according to Mario de las Casas, corporate affairs manager at Cosco Shipping Chancay Peru.

And then this, Blinken announcing that the US is contributing to a new rail line in lima

Which is actually caltrain selling lima some 40 year old diesel train parts for $6m

Definitely a deal worthy of rocking in the free world

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/18/world/hong-kong-democracy-leaders-sentencing-intl-hnk/index.html

Joshua Wong shouts ‘I love Hong Kong’ as more than 40 leading democracy leaders handed lengthy prison terms in mass trial

Hong Kong CNN — More than 40 of Hong Kong’s best known pro-democracy figures have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 10 years on subversion charges, in the biggest single blow to the city’s already shrinking political freedoms following Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on dissent.

Most only got several years. One guy got ten for being a central organizer.

Individual Jan 6 rioters got 20 years just for hitting a cop.

Spain sentenced Catalans to up to 40 years for doing exactly what Tai did (minus the violent rioting.)

Statement from President Joe Biden on Warrants Issued by the International Criminal Court

"The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security."

This shit is beyond parody.

Weapons grade copium: EU to demand technology transfers from Chinese companies

Brussels is planning to force Chinese companies to transfer intellectual property to European businesses in return for EU subsidies as part of a tougher trade regime for clean technologies. New criteria requiring Chinese businesses to have factories in Europe and share technological knowhow will be introduced when Brussels invites bids for €1bn of grants to develop batteries in December, according to two senior EU officials. The pilot could be rolled out to other EU subsidy schemes, they said. The requirements, while at much smaller scale, echo China’s own regime, which pressures foreign companies into sharing their intellectual property in exchange for access to the Chinese market. The criteria could be subject to change ahead of the tender, officials said. The plans represent part of a hardening stance from Europe towards China as it seeks to protect companies in the bloc — subject to strict environmental regulations — from being undercut by cheap and more polluting imports.

In massive bloomer/too good to be true news:
https://xcancel.com/ChenKojira/status/1859658593588613336

China has developed a surgical cure for alzheimers

China successfully invented a surgery for curing Alzheimer’s disease. Known as LVA surgery, it is performned on neck lymphatics. So far, there have been 42 clinical trials, all have been successes.

https://xcancel.com/Pal_action/status/1860030550951825519

BREAKING: Elbit Systems UK loses its biggest contract worth over £2billion, as the Ministry of Defence scraps the Watchkeeper drone project.

This comes after sustained direct action caused severe disruption to Leicester's Israeli weapons factory, the site leading the production.

user squarecoats1 on twitter has made a map with all of the contractors and subcontractors in the US involved in many of the weapons and materiel being used in the genocide, including hellfire missiles and F35s. there's a lot of nitty gritty details in here, nearly 700 locations on the map, tracking who makes even the smallest parts of some of this stuff. they have also included a spreadsheet with the raw data that users can pore through since the site where they uploaded the map only allows 1000 visitors per month. pretty interesting

Support for deportation of illegal immigrants can vary from 62% to 33% depending on how the question is asked

The Hill Op-Ed: World War III is now Trump’s to lose

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/5000642-trump-world-war-iii/

Negotiations with Russia would be futile. History tells us that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words are meaningless. Anything short of a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine and the restoration of their 1991 borders would be a victory for the Kremlin.

The defeat of Russian forces is the best outcome, and precision deep-strike weapons are a vital part of that outcome. Now is the time to invoke General Ulysses S. Grant — to close with and destroy the enemy, applying relentless pressure until they capitulate.

Bruh, these libs really want us all to die

by Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet,

Deeply unserious country.

I have to put my trust entirely on Putin and the Russian ruling class to not escalate this to a nuclear war, huh

Why shouldn't I wish death on all NATO supporters at this point?

BadEmpanada pointed out something very funny about Netanyahu/Gallant ICC arrest warrant. They used Biden's strongly-worded letter to Israel and the corresponding increase in aid as further evidence of Israel's crimes. It proves that Israel has the capacity to deliver food to Gaza but deliberately choses not to.

The Chamber also noted that decisions allowing or increasing humanitarian assistance into Gaza were often conditional. They were not made to fulfil Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law or to ensure that the civilian population in Gaza would be adequately supplied with goods in need. In fact, they were a response to the pressure of the international community or requests by the United States of America. In any event, the increases in humanitarian assistance were not sufficient to improve the population’s access to essential goods.

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges

This week on throwing away your principles for no reason: Anti-landmine NGO says landmines are okay when Ukraine uses them

Betting pool

• Russia strikes a Polish supply depot near the Ukrainian border
• Decapitation strike that kills Zelenskyy
• Houthis get a carrier killer
• Cuba gets the bomb again
• atmospheric nuke test
• “did I say a red line? It’s more of a red guideline.”

Yemen has struck a Turkish container ship for the first time
EDIT: Forgot to add since it's probably obvious but the ship was sailing to Israel

Just the BYD Zhengzhou Gigafactory, currently under expansion, compared to the biggest Tesla factory. It actualy can fit every single Tesla factory in it with room to spare. Its already like, a third of the size of Manhattan. The plant 70k workers in 2024.

An angle from the ground, dont know from when. Bunch of wind turbines on the background tho.

A video of the immense construction going on for the expansion as well

BREAKING | Explosions rock Tel Aviv following missiles fired from Lebanon. Impacts made and injuries reported.

@TheCradleMedia

The United States of America has officially recognized the latest loser of the Venezuelan election as the president-elect

BYD has now produced 10 million electric and hybrid cars.

https://xcancel.com/parismarx/status/1859651117250208115

Trudeau says Canada will arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they enter Canada.

All the worst people in the world are very, VERY mad about the ICC warrants, thus the warrants are incredibly based and cool.

CNN - Accident or sabotage? American and European officials disagree as key undersea cables are cut

My “sometimes two undersea cables just do that simultaneously” t-shirt has a lot of people asking questions answered by my shirt.

The two cables – the BCS East-West connecting Lithuanian and Sweden and the C-Lion1 linking Finland with Germany – were suddenly disrupted on Sunday and Monday.

European leaders were quick to voice their suspicions. Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that “nobody believes that these cables were accidentally severed.”

The foreign ministers of Finland and Germany said in a joint statement that they were “deeply concerned” about the incident and raised the possibility that it was part of a “hybrid warfare,” specifically mentioning Russia in their statement.

But two US officials familiar with the initial assessment of the incident told CNN on Tuesday the damage was not believed to be deliberate activity by Russia or any other nation.

Instead, the two officials told CNN they believed it likely caused by an anchor drag from a passing vessel. Such accidents have happened in the past, although not in a quick succession like the two on Sunday and Monday.

They fucking did it to them again.

I've been reading about Morocco recently, mostly inspired by Rania's anti-Morocco posting here. I have a massive blindspot when it comes to the history of the Maghreb countries, I literally know nothing about these countries outside of the Sahara issue and the Algerian Liberation War. Very interesting history, but it's hard to come out with any conclusion other than wanting to Minecraft the entire royal family. The amount of collusion and treachery is ridiculous, disgusting state on all possible levels. I'll give them points for building nice infrastructure and making Morocco a generally nice place to live in, but all that progress doesn't happen without complete submission and humiliation to Western capital. We need a Morocco COTW theme in the near future so that I can shit on Morocco even more.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Korea wrote an article published on 10th of October.

"A detestable criminal country that needs to be swept away in a day."

Israel's genocidal campaign against Palestinians, which began in October last year, has continued year after year, and its means and methods have reached a point beyond human imagination, drawing the ire of the international community.

According to Palestine's Wafa news agency, Israel's rogue regime, which has no regard for international law and humanitarian principles, recently shocked the world by devising a “bill” to restrict the activities of the UNRWA, with the aim of massacring innocent Palestinians once again.

It is not enough that Israel has massacred more than 42,000 Palestinians and displaced more than 1.9 million Palestinians, more than 90% of the Palestinians in Gaza, in the past year since the outbreak of the Gaza crisis, but the Israeli criminal justice system's anti-humanitarian blockade of UNRWA, which is aimed at completely exterminating an entire people, is a heinous act of human rights abuses and a despicable war crime.

The murderers, who are ruthlessly depriving people of their human rights, the most important of which is the right to survival, and plotting to cut off the last link of the refugees, and the unscrupulous human white elephants, who are toasting and laughing at the spectacle of bombing the inhabited areas of Gaza, are grossly violating humanity's right to survival and development by expanding the scope of mass destruction to neighboring countries.

The international community is outraged that Israel, a dysfunctional country that ignores even the rudimentary notion of human rights and promotes extreme hateful ideas, and a country where criminals who take pleasure in human blood should never have existed on Earth in the first place.

All justice- and peace-oriented nations and progressive movements must unite to firmly defend human justice, conscience, and world peace by decisively stopping Israel's criminal atrocities and expelling this cancerous cancer of human society from the face of the earth".

over 100 rockets, drones and cruise missiles (!) launched into Israel (Haifa, Tel Aviv, and more) over the last 18 hours. Too many for one post but this channel has updates

https://t.me/LebUpdate/48082

https://t.me/PalCommie/4141

Nasrallah’s Organs https://t.me/PalCommie/4150

i signed up for another reddit account after getting a 2nd ip ban (doesn't do shit btw) and was shocked by how much CIA propaganda there was on the frontpage even though i chose vietnam and standup comedy as things i wanted to see (i picked random topics)