news

With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans:
https://xcancel.com/FlaDems/status/1879279835413168143

The Florida Democratic Party condemns the removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Psaki: I'm assuming he didn't bring up his intention to publicly say he was going to annex through economic means Canada

Trudeau: When I started to suggest there could be a trade for Vermont or California, he immediately decided that it was not not that funny anymore.

You know he's lying because Trump would 100% jokingly trade off California for Alberta or some shit

Greenland's Stolen Children

In 1951 a group of 22 Greenlandic children were ripped from their families and communities and shipped to Denmark as part of a social experiment. The children were made to speak Danish and sent to Danish schools. The children were meant to become role models for a new bilingual school system and to get ahead in life by forming the nucleus of a colonial comprador elite in Greenland.

Very little came of the grand designs and the children suffered the consequences for the rest of their lives.

Amid UN demands for decolonisation after WWII the Danish colonial regime had big plans for modernisering Greenland. They saw the Danish language as an important part of the effort and believed Inuit language and culture to be backwards and primitive, an albatross around the neck of a modern Greenland. Together with the Red Cross and Save The Children the Danish regime hatched the plan to make the children become "civilised" by assimilating into Danish culture and learning the Danish language.

Local Danish priests in Greenland were tasked with selecting the children, who were all supposed to be orphans, six to seven years old, healthy and intelligent. When they failed to find enough eligible children requirenents were relaxed. Out of 22 trafficked children only six were actual orphans and the oldest child in the scheme was nine years old. Families were misled to give up their children, being made to believe that the separation would only be temporary.

The children were supposed to stay at Save The Children's summer camps in Denmark and later on with Danish foster parents for 15 months. But the stay was prolonged as the construction of the orphanage in Nuuk they were supposed to return to got delayed. Eventually six children were adopted by their Danish foster parents with the remaining 16 returning to Greenland. The children's families had not been told that the children would stay in an orphanage instead of going home to their communities.

The returning children had forgotten the Greenlandic language so when they got back to Nuuk they were sent to school with Danish-speaking children, defying the programme's stated goal of "bridging" Danish and Greenlandic society. They were seen as foreign by both Greenlanders and Danes and struggled with loss of identity. The geographical distance as well as the linguistic barrier alienated them from their families for life.

The children stayed at the orphanage until they turned 15. Most of them eventually moved to Denmark, a few moved to other countries and only six stayed in Greenland. Of the 16 children in the orphanage three completed higher education, seven of them did not complete any secondary education. Half of the children would grow up to struggle with substance abuse, mental illness and homelessness. Many were affected by unemployment. Half of the 22 children in the scheme died before turning 70.

At no point does the surviving archival material suggest any concerns for the wellbeing of the children among those responsible. Nobody was asking about consequences due the children. It was seen as a given that assimilation to Danish culture was beneficial.

It was not until 2020 that the Danish state would give the children an official apology. In 2021 six surviving children sued the Danish state, the case was settled in 2022 with each victim receiving a DKK 250.000 compensation. In 2024 four of the Greenlandic children who had been adopted by Danish families sued the state for a similar compensation.

To this day the trafficking of the 22 children is a national trauma for Greenland and is seen as an example of the colonial mentality and disregard for Inuit culture that still festers as a dark undercurrent in Danish-Greenlandic relations.

"Full year results of household survey for 2024 in China just posted. Real household income and consumption rose faster than overall GDP growth. Gains to rural households are significantly higher than urban households."

It appears that the latest round of negotiations for a ceasefire deal between Gaza and Israel, which started in earnest late in December last year, are closer than ever before to a ceasefire.

One of the final stumbling blocks, the release of female Israeli soldiers and their classification in a hostage release/exchange deal (should female Israeli soldiers be released at the same time/in the same group as male soldiers and military aged males (18-50 years old), or at the same time as civilian women, children and elderly men over 50) has been worked out in the latest draft proposal.

Latest reporting states that a decision has been made, female Israeli soldiers will be released alongside civilians and the elderly in the first phase of a hostage exchange deal, with male Israeli soldiers and military aged Israeli males being released at a later date, in a second phase of a potential hostage exchange and ceasefire agreement. The hostage "exchange rate" for the first stage involving female Israeli soldiers and civilians/the elderly is said to be 50 Palestinian prisoners for every female Israeli soldier, and 30 Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli civilian or elderly male.

So a compromise was reached: female Israeli soldiers now enjoy the same classification as civilian women, children and elderly men in a hostage exchange, but at the cost of more Palestinian prisoners being released. I won't comment on the ethics of that... Anthony Blinken is set to release his proposal for the third stage of the ceasefire agreement, the rebuilding and governance of Gaza, later today. Let's hope that he doesn't screw everything up. Can't believe that the whole deal now hinges on Blinken
not messing it up.

Al Jazeera, 14 January 2025: Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel, Hamas at ‘closest point’ – Qatar

Reuters, 14 January 2025: Main points of the Gaza ceasefire proposal

Axios News, 14 January 2024: Blinken to present post-war plan for Gaza on Tuesday

Given the massive influx of TikTok users to the Chinese app Xiaohongshu (aka “Little Red Book”) I’ve decided to hold the first ever semi-official Hexbear Agitprop Contest. You can read more about what is going on and the contest here.

I hope to see some posting or input on the contest concept from our big beautiful comrades

Checking in from my new Little Red Book "#wuhluhwuh" addiction to post this quote I just saw on there (the app is such good agitprop) of the Chinese rep apparently popping off at the UNSC today. I checked their UN mission site transcript and IT'S TRUE lol. Here's some choice excerpts.

For some time now, and in fact today, the US has been peddling false narrative to discredit and smear China at the Council's meetings on the Ukraine issue. [...] At earlier meetings, I responded to the US fallacies many times. Today, I might go a little further. 

First, if China had really provided military supplies to Russia, the situation on the battleground would not have been where it is now. [...]

[...] The fact is, since the beginning, the US has used the Ukraine war to advance its geopolitical strategy and serve its own agenda. To sum up, first, the US wants nothing more than a weakened and defeated Russia through the war, so as to dominate European security and further increase its influence in Europe. Second, through the war, the US intends to stoke up bloc confrontation, create divisions, and contain and isolate China, a strategic rival in their eyes. Third, the US wishes to project a positive image to offset the international community's criticism of its policies in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the US has failed on all three attempts.

NEW: We reconstructed @samhusseini's viral confrontation with Antony Blinken by combining footage from multiple sources, including @amrhsayed & @ryangrim. A must-see.

This was the culmination of months of State Dept stonewalling.

“Why aren't you in The Hague??”

video at https://xcancel.com/decensorednews/status/1880230957070029141

Hundreds of Aid Trucks Begin Flowing into Gaza Through Egyptian Side of Rafah Crossing - Telesur

I hate 'purity politics', with the exception of pro-genocide purity politics, then I'm all in favor of purity politics!

It's clear: Harris lost A LOT of votes because of the Biden admin's support for Israel’s genocide.

Our poll out today with @YouGov finds Biden 2020 voters who did not vote for Harris name "ending Israel's violence in Gaza" as the top issue affecting their vote choice.

https://x.com/imeupolicy/status/1879576523377975352

China announces the largest trade surplus the world has ever seen: almost US$ 1 trillion. The highest Chinese surplus so far had been US$ 838 billion - in 2022.

China exported almost US$ 1 trillion more goods than it imported in 2024. A spokesman for the General Administration of Customs said that the country exported US$3.58 trillion in goods and services, and imported US$2.59 trillion - creating a surplus of US$990 billion, a world record. The highest Chinese surplus so far had been US$838 billion - in 2022.

Chinese factories produce a third of all manufactured goods in the world. More than the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea and the United Kingdom combined, according to 2022 data from the United Nations. In the last decade, China has gone from importing cars to becoming the world's largest exporter. Chinese companies produce almost all the solar panels sold on the planet. At the same time, the Chinese have been importing less. The Chinese government spokesman said that if other countries hadn't politicized trade, China would have imported more.

Trump says he will revive TikTok, but wants 50% U.S. ownership

Trump said he would “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”

“I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Trump said the executive order would specify there would be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before his order.

Joint ownership was exactly as I wrote in this comment here - we’ll probably see a joint venture in some kind of AI development between Meta/Google and a Chinese partner in return. The whole TikTok ban was just to open up the path for Meta/Google to enter China again:

I would expect some kind of joint venture in the field of AI development, which is what Meta and Google excel in.

For reference, Apple is currently in talks with Tencent and ByteDance to roll out its AI features in China, you can see why Meta and Google, both banned in China, would want a slice of that share too. How do you force China to lift the ban? By banning TikTok itself and force a hostage exchange situation.

It also fits with the recent US emphasis on banning AI stuff to China. The US then offers an olive branch if China allows American tech companies to enter to participate in their AI development. Now we see how China responds.

Honestly, I'm a little surprised that Trump told Bibi to fuck off. I thought he was going to do that with Elon or Milei first.

Just learned that not only is TikTok likely getting banned, but CapCut is too, which is a video editing software that helps with automatically adding in mandarin subtitles to your videos. Making RedNote harder for people. These cowardly pricks lol

moo deng endorses trump

trump, being the puppet of moo deng, forces the pissrael to accept ceasefire

are you still not trusting her plan anon ?

He is dealing

Israel will release 1,890 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 33 hostages held by the radical Hamas movement, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.

Related to news. The national news of Finland has taken the time out of their Russia = bad focus to tell us plebs that Rednote is bad and heavily state controlled and nobody should use it.

Seeing a status quo maintenance piece about the TikTok ban and Rednote is a great example of the vassal state status that we now occupy.

Edit. The source our state media is using on this is China Digital Times.🤡

They have a label plastered all over their newssites that claims them to be "responsible journalism".

DJI has removed geofencing that prevented their commercial (civilian) drones from being flown in restricted airspace (military bases)

With this update, DJI’s Fly and Pilot flight app operators will see prior DJI geofencing datasets replaced to display official Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data. Areas previously defined as Restricted Zones (also known as No-Fly Zones) will be displayed as Enhanced Warning Zones, aligning with the FAA's designated areas. In these zones, in-app alerts will notify operators flying near FAA designated controlled airspace, placing control back in the hands of the drone operators, in line with regulatory principles of the operator bearing final responsibility.

DJI drones are just free drones traveling the land now

Biden will remove Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/01/14/politics/biden-remove-cuba-from-state-sponsor-of-terrorism-list

Just a reminder: the ceasefire only comes into effect on the 19th of January officially, this Sunday. There have been videos of Hamas fighters coming out from underground (so far it all seems like reposts of the same single video, but there may be more in the coming hours and days), and reports of Israeli massacres in Gaza within the past hour. If you see recent videos of Hamas fighters on social media, do not repost or share them! At least until the 19th. This is critically important for OPSEC reasons and the safety of Palestinians. I am not trying to put a damper on the situation or being a downer, i know OPSEC sucks at times, but this is very important. It's only one video for now.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/14/tech/rednote-china-popularity-us-tiktok-ban-intl-hnk/index.html

Within the span of two days, more than 700,000 new users have joined Xiaohongshu, Reuters reported, citing a person close to the company. CNN has reached out to Xiaohongshu for comment.

As of Wednesday, the hashtag “TikTok refugee” had garnered nearly 250 million views and over 5.5 million comments. Many of the American users they had joined as an act of defiance against Washington’s move on TikTok.

“Our government is out of their minds if they think we’re going to stand for this TikTok ban,” a user called Heather Roberts said in a video message on Xiaohongshu, which has garnered more than 45,000 likes. “We’re just going to a new Chinese app, and here we are.”

Some news from occupied Palestine.

The Zionist regime admitted that yesterday Palestinian resistance fighters eliminated five more Zionist occupation troops in northern Gaza: https://southfront.press/israeli-army-takes-in-more-losses-in-gaza-as-ceasefire-nears/

Yemen fired another hypersonic Palestine-2 ballistic missile at the Zionist “Defense Ministry” headquarters in Tel Aviv: https://thecradle.co/articles/undeterred-by-us-led-war-yemen-targets-israel-three-times-in-12-hours

Zionist genocidal attacks massacred over 50 civilians in Gaza, including an attack on Gaza City's Shujaiya neighborhood that killed 11 people. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/01/14/740875/Israel-kills-50-Palestinians-Gaza-strikes

Special bonus video, a US activist correctly called out Blinken for being a brutal war criminal: https://news-pravda.com/world/2025/01/14/977470.html

David Lynch died at 78 Im sad hexbear users

The only way Greenland could secede and remain independent is if they are given an atomic weapon. Yes, my campaign is "A Nuke for Nuuk"

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2025/01/15/statement-from-president-joe-biden-14/ turns out they could have done it at any time, huh

seems fairly brazen from iran (if true/not old stuff), i would assume they would have suspended this part of the operations. kinda darkly funny how open hts is about its preferences

Blue MAGA trying to cope give Biden credit like didn't circumvent congress to send weapons for this genocide. How many issues has he circumvented congress on? Just demonic

It was something else to witness rednote and TikTok go from having no Americans to being overrun with them. I suddenly noticed a strong lack of overly dramatic posting and “ironic”’faces when speaking on TikTok. It was nice.

Under Brazil's presidency, BRICS announces the entry of Cuba, Bolivia and six other countries as partners. The countries join the bloc as partners, with a lower status than full members, but with the possibility of participating in summits and thematic meetings. According to Friday's announcement, the following countries have joined the BRICS as partners:

• Belarus

• Bolivia

• Kazakhstan

• Cuba

• Malaysia

• Thailand

• Uganda

• Uzbekistan

David Lynch, Visionary Director of ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet,’ Dies at 78.

In January 2025, Lynch evacuated his Los Angeles home due to the Southern California wildfires; Deadline Hollywood reported that these events preceded a terminal decline in his health, and on January 16, 2025, Lynch's family announced that he had died at the age of 78.

Director-writer David Lynch, who radicalized American film with with a dark, surrealistic artistic vision in films like “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and network television with “Twin Peaks,” has died. He was 78.

Lynch revealed in 2024 that he had been diagnosed with emphysema after a lifetime of smoking, and would likely not be able to leave his house to direct any longer. His family announced his death in a Facebook post, writing, “There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.'”

The “Twin Peaks” TV show and films such as “Blue Velvet,” “Lost Highway” and “Mulholland Drive” melded elements of horror, film noir, the whodunit and classical European surrealism. Lynch wove tales, not unlike those of his Spanish predecessor Luis Bunuel, which proceeded with their own impenetrable logic.

A four-time Oscar nominee, Lynch received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2020. After years spent as a painter and a maker of short animated and live action films, Lynch burst onto the scene with his 1977 feature debut “Eraserhead,” a horrific, black-humored work that became a disturbing fixture on the midnight movie circuit. His outré and uncompromising style quickly won the attention of the Hollywood and international movie-making establishment.

He was hired by Mel Brooks’ production company to write and direct “The Elephant Man,” a deeply affecting drama about a horrifically deformed sideshow freak in Victorian England who became a national celebrity. The feature captured eight Academy Award nominations, including Lynch’s first for best director.

Hirono also asked him about reports of excessive drinking. Hegseth has told Republican senators in meetings over the last month that he will not drink on the job.

Republicans dismissed the allegations. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., noted that Democratic senators had asked Hegseth about his drinking, saying, “How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it, because I know you have,” Mullin said to his colleagues.

ap news

🤣🤣🤣

The Taiwanese political poll just got their yearly update:
https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/PageDoc/Detail?fid=7801&id=6963

Taiwanese separatism peaked in 2020 because the Hong Kong protests were still on people's minds, and it's being downhill ever since. Nobody is buying what the DPP is trying to peddle. Damn, it turns out sending one of your political opponents to jail on corruption charges for transparent political reasons would put a damper on your party ideology. The status quo reigns supreme. Eat shit, boba libs.

Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell face police interview after pro-Palestinian rally: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clykrvp1g83o More public order offence fascism

I just found something spooky

The vote difference between Trump and Harris is almost exactly the same amount as the pre-genocide population of Gaza, 2.2 million votes/people

FEATURING!

The News Megathread Imperialism Reading Group: Week 1 - January 13th to January 19th, 2025

IF YOU WANT TO BE HUGE THEORY NERD THAT DUNKS ON HOGS WITH YOUR BEAUTIFUL COMMUNIST PROBAGANDA DRENCHED BRAINS WITH THE EASE AND FEAST UPON THE CORPSES OF YOUR ENEMIES WITH THE ELEGANCE OF A BEAUTIFUL PURPLE EMPEROR BUTTERFLY NOW'S YOU CHANCE TO GET THE NOGGIN MARINATION GOING!

CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO 72T'S POST WHERE IT SAYS

Welcome to the first week of the Imperialism Reading Group!

This will be a weekly thread in which we read through books on and related to imperialism and geopolitics. How many chapters or pages we will cover per week will vary based on the density and difficulty of the book, but I'm generally aiming at 30 to 40 pages per week, which should take you about an hour or two.

The first book we will be covering is the foundation, the one and only, Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. We will read two chapters per week starting from this week, meaning that we will finish reading in mid-to-late February. Unless a better suggestion is made, we will then cover Michael Hudson's Super Imperialism, and continue with various books from there.

Every week, I will write a summary of the chapter(s) read, for those who have already read the book and don't wish to reread, can't follow along for various reasons, or for those joining later who want to dive right in to the next book without needing to pick this one up too.

This week, we will be reading Chapter 1: Concentration of Production and Monopolies, and Chapter 2: Banks and their New Role.

Please comment or message me directly if you wish to be pinged for this group. (Meaning you poke 72T not me. don't make me play telephone!)

https://hexbear.net/post/4272887