news

Background info on the Vietnamese president who just recently got purged. The tl;dr is that he's a liberal worm who tried to undermine Vietnam from within:
https://nitter.poast.org/darrion_nguyen/status/1776809036123672765

‘Simply mind-boggling’: world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe

An unprecedented leap of 38.5C in the coldest place on Earth is a harbinger of a disaster for humans and the local ecosystem

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/06/simply-mind-boggling-world-record-temperature-jump-in-antarctic-raises-fears-of-catastrophe

Last month's news: editorial from The Gazette https://archive.is/g3ajP, article from NYT https://archive.is/tPrps

'NEW Cooperative', USAmerican farming company dumps 265000 gallons (1,000,000 liters) of liquid nitrogen into a tributary of a major river, killing 789,000+ fish. Ecosystem has been pretty much destroyed, and a biologist says it will take decades for it to recover (New York Times). The company was fined $6,000 . The state government has a maximum fine of $10,000 it is allowed to charge without going to court (The Gazetta).

The former vice president of Ecuador, Jorge Glas, is transferred to the maximum security prison 'La Roca' in Guayaquil. Glas was arrested last night at the Mexican embassy in Quito, in flagrant violation of international law and Mexican sovereignty and in violation of Article 22 of the Vienna Convention, which states that diplomatic headquarters cannot be broken into.

Nicaragua cuts ties with Ecuador after raid on Mexican embassy in Quito

Nicaragua announced Saturday it was cutting off "all diplomatic relations" with Ecuador after police stormed the Mexican embassy in Quito and arrested former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas who had sought asylum there.

🇾🇪 Yemeni Armed Forces announces that it targeted British container ship Hope Island in the Red Sea, as well as two Israeli ships headed to Israeli ports — MSC Gina and MSC Grace F with a number of missiles.

https://t.me/army21ye/1695?single

I feel like I don't know enough about the background to understand the current Mexico-Ecuador crisis.

What made the Ecuadorean regime so angry at the former vice president that made them accept the blowback for violating one of the most basic norms of international politics? Why were Mexico granting him asylum in the first place? And what is the underlying tensions between Mexico and Ecuador that enabled the situation to escalate this far?

Taiwan letting TSMC build entire fabs in the US is the most stupid geopolitical strategy ever. I know they're puppets and all but the population of Taiwan should see it as a serious issue.

Mexico breaking diplomatic relations with Ecuador

listening to these fully libbed deep state insider type podcasts and the world these people fucking live in.

Actual transcription:

Opens with Churchill speech

Follows with Zelenskyy speech

“Many comparisons have been made between Zelenskyy and Wiston Churchill, Professor Lord Andrew Roberts, how far do those similarities go?”

“[Very posh voice] I think they go very faaaar in fact. Chuckle. You know, I think he’s been called ‘Churchill with an iphone’.”

“His relationship with his generals is very similar… he lets his generals know that he’s in charge.”

Turns to other guest, another posh voice

“I think Churchill with an iPhone is exactly right.”

a15action.com - Coordinated Economic Blockade to Free Palestine: A proposal to coordinate a multi-city economic blockade on April 15th in solidarity with Palestine recently received overwhelming commitments to participate around the US and internationally.

Gabriel Boric, president of Chile, also condemned the invasion of the Mexican embassy.

todays tradle seems a little trickier than usual

How Palestinian Resistance Leader Yahya Sinwar Led the Negotiations for the 2011 Prisoner Exchange From Inside Prison

When Ahmed Ghandour was released from Ashkelon Prison in 1994, he promised his comrades still inside that he would help them achieve freedom. A few years after he arrived in Gaza, he, alongside Ahmed Al-Jabari and Marwan Issa, engineered and executed the Operation Dissipated Illusion.

On June 25, 2006, at 5:15 a.m., a group of Palestinian Resistance fighters infiltrated through a tunnel to the outskirts of the Kerem Shalom border crossing east of the Gaza Strip and attacked an occupation military outpost. That day, the occupation army woke up to an announcement from Abu Obeida, the military spokesperson for Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, stating that the resistance succeeded in killing two Israeli soldiers and injuring five others, in addition to capturing the soldier Gilad Shalit. Abu Obeida summed it up: “Shalit will not be released except through a prisoner exchange.”

...

Netanyahu tasked Ofer Dekel with pressuring the resistance leadership in the prisons. He asked him to go to the Prisons Service to arrange a meeting with Hamas leaders in Hadarim Prison to have them pressure the leadership outside. The security official met with prisoners Tawfiq Abu Naim, Yahya Sinwar, and Abdel Nasser Issa. A few days after this meeting, whose echoes reverberated in the prison and were conveyed through the prison administration to other prisons, the Prisons Service transferred all the Hamas leaders in the prisons, including Sinwar and all the detained members of the Legislative Council, to the Negev desert prison. The prison administration provided the prisoners with a cell phone and asked them to contact the Hamas leadership outside so that they would soften their position in exchange for releasing all of them in a preliminary exchange. The prisoners’ leadership noticed the trap that the Israelis had set and how they sought to sow confusion and dissent among the prisoners, especially those sentenced to life imprisonment, not to mention the sick, elderly, children, and women. However, the resistance factions, in all exchange operations that they conduct, ensure that the release does not include only specific individuals from the same party, but primarily aims to include all categories of prisoners from all organizations.

The prisoners’ leadership handed over the phone to the prison administration and informed them of its position and condition: that only Yahya Sinwar would be released and that he must be delivered safely to the Gaza Strip for consultation with the leadership on the issue of the exchange deal. Of course, Dekel rejected Sinwar’s offer, which thwarted the Israeli plan. In less than an hour, the Prisons Service returned the prisoners to the prisons from which they had been gathered.

Negotiations remained frozen throughout 2010, especially after Sinwar learned the details—from his lawyer visiting him in prison—of the negotiation agreement that had been presented at al-Zahar’s house. The planned agreement excluded many senior prisoners, especially those who had planned and executed major operations, including Hassan Salameh, Abdullah Barghouti, and Ibrahim Hamed.

Through a phone smuggled to Room 11 of Beersheba Prison, Sinwar made a call to al-Zahar informing him of his position and the prisoners who rejected the proposed deal. Sinwar then made another call to the leader Khaled Meshal, informing him of his objection and that of all the prisoners. Meshal promised Sinwar that he would halt the deal, and this is what happened.

Before dismantling the phone and hiding it to avoid detection, Sinwar made his final call to his brother Mohammed Sinwar, saying to him: “Say hello to Hajj [referring to his former cellmate Ahmed Al-Jabari] and tell him that the trust he has is not in vain” (referring to the captive Shalit).

Sinwar specified from inside his prison the price for the release of Gilad Shalit. The agreement was concluded on October 11, 2011, with the Netanyahu government announcing its approval of the deal with Hamas which achieved the liberation of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar.

"Civilians in Gaza are the shield of Hamas, the shield of the descendants of Jew gassers" - Descendants of Jew gassers

https://nitter.poast.org/Ruairi_Casey/status/1776199576661164182

Info and footage of Hezbollah shooting down one of the IOF's largest reconnaissance drone:
https://nitter.poast.org/Southerner2000/status/1776812209508692378

Daily reminder that the Zionist entity is a haven for pedos:
https://nitter.poast.org/QudsNen/status/1776613511650586856

Correistas call for Noboa's resignation.

Members of the Citizen Revolution party, the largest party in Ecuador's National Assembly, have called on the country's president, Daniel Noboa, to resign due to his inability to govern.

Argentina and Guatemala joined the chorus of Latin American countries and condemned the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador by the Ecuadorian national police.

Argentina also recalled the situation of the Venezuelan asylum seekers in its embassy in Venezuela, who are waiting for safe passage to leave the country.

The request also covers the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador yesterday by the National Police, at the behest of the government.

Bolivian President Luis Arce condemned the invasion of the Mexican embassy by the Ecuadorian police.

Dude tried to toast Bernie's Vermont office.

I don't understand why everyone is so obsessed with "China manufacturing overcapacity."

This isn't new. We saw the same thing with Japan, and the solution was simply to deflate the value of the USD/EUR relative to the Yen. Do the same thing relative to the RMB and you would solve all of these overcapacity issues.

Of course, the West likes the benefits of having a strong currency without appreciating the costs.

On Friday, Bolivia's foreign ministry issued a statement, saying the country "expresses its solidarity with the sister People's Republic of China, in the face of the loss of life and severe material damage caused by a large earthquake that occurred in recent hours off the coast of Taiwan".

Lol

Taiwan slams Bolivia for quake solidarity with China - CNA

DPP authorities' politicization of earthquake a 'secondary disaster' to Taiwan residents - Global Times

I couldn’t find the actual statement on their website.

hmmmmm

The Ecuadorean police, following orders from President Daniel Noboa, INVADED the Mexican embassy in Ecuador to remove the former vice-president, Jorge Glass, who had been granted political asylum and was taking refuge there. Following the blatant assault on international law, with Ecuador invading the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with the country, on the orders of the country's president, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The three candidates for the Mexican presidency in this June's elections have condemned the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador. Jorge Alvarez, from the Citizen's Movement, and Claudia Sheinbaum, from MORENA, called for the government to act firmly.

There are politicians who don't think about the side-effects of their actions, and what they can cause for citizens. Ecuador is isolating itself more and more from the world with these actions, and anyone who thinks otherwise, just watch what happens.

Pity for the Ecuadorians on the Mexico-US border. Following the invasion of the Mexican embassy by the Ecuadorian police, at the behest of the Ecuadorian government, several countries condemned it.

Many drew parallels with other countries where the conflict over asylum seekers has already taken place, such as Ecuador itself with Julian Assange. And the concern remains:

Analysts consider if this fact is not condemned by the West, what will stop authoritarians like Nicolas Maduro from doing the same, with Venezuelan opponents who are refugees in the Argentine embassy in the country?

Mexico has broken off relations with Ecuador and announced that it will withdraw from the country in the next few hours, expecting the same from the Ecuadorian delegation in Mexico. Brazil expressed its solidarity with the Mexican government following the raid on the Mexican embassy by Ecuadorian police.

"The measure carried out by the Ecuadorian government constitutes a serious precedent and should be strongly repudiated, whatever the justification for it."

The President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, expressed his solidarity with the Mexican President, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, AMLO, after the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador. The Organization of American States, the OAS, condemned the raid by Ecuadorian police on the Mexican embassy in the country. It said it expected a meeting of the body's permanent council to discuss the situation.

Some news regarding an anti-colonial struggle going on against France ( ), from theredstream on Telegram:

A crisis brewing in New Caledonia

Earlier this week, the French senate endorsed a constitutional review project bearing significant modifications to the Pacific overseas territory’s election system, but not without making its own amendments.

The reform aims to expand the roll of eligible voters for New Caledonia’s provincial elections, currently reserved for locally-born New Caledonian citizens, migrants who have been living on the islands since before 1988, and their descendants.

With the reform implemented, the next elections would be open to French nationals with at least 10 years of uninterrupted residence in New Caledonia, allowing an extra 11,000 people to vote, most of whom are non-indigenous.

The next elections, due by mid-December, are seen as crucial for the French overseas territory, where voices favoring independence have grown stronger among the indigenous Kanak people.

Fearing to lose the archipelago, French president Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party, backed by the right wing, aims to shift the balance of forces in the local institutions currently held by pro-independence politicians.

New Caledonia’s pro-independence umbrella, the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), views the move as an attempt to roll back the achievements gained by the now-defunct Nouméa Accord of 1998. They call for a new statute to enshrine a clear pathway toward an independent and sovereign state.

The fact that the archipelago is embroiled in a deep economic crisis doesn’t help. The government led by pro-independence President Louis Mapou is under pressure, as ordinary people feel the burden of increased cost of living.

Tensions in New Caledonia are set to continue to escalate as the French government seeks to hinder the overseas territory’s self-determination and retain the strategically important archipelago within the French Republic.

It remains to be seen whether the revision marks an end to a peaceful process and a possible return to tumult, which heralds new hostilities.

Mexican-Ecuadorian Crisis

In an exclusive interview with teleSUR, the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Barcena, announced that the Government of her country will denounce Ecuador in the ICJ for the violation of sovereignty with the forced invasion of the Mexican embassy in Quito

Mexican diplomat Roberto Canseco was visibly shaken after being assaulted by Ecuador's police as they invaded the embassy of Mexico in Quito in order to abduct former Vice President Jorge Glas. Glas' whereabouts are unknown.

“I am very worried because they may kill Jorge Glas.”

Jorge Glas was kicked out of Lenin Moreno's goverment because he refused the become a comprador.

CELAC ought to call on Daniel Noboa to ensure the safety of Jorge Glas and he must immediately be returned to Mexican authorities for his transfer to Mexico.

Daniel Noboa confirms that his security forces abducted and doubles down in declaring his blatant disregard for international law. The embassy of Mexico must send off their security footage before Noboa's henchmen destroy it.

Honduras, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia and Nicaragua repudiate the actions of the Ecuadorian police. As it violates the Vienna Convention.

A bunch of right-wing Ecuadorian chuds on Twitter celebrating this, when this shit that Noboa has done is isolating their own country from its neighbors and even the West, at a time when they need support as they are basically in a civil war.

The Ohio secretary of state has sent a letter to the Ohio Democratic party warning that Joe Biden could be left off the November election ballot in 2024

the Democratic National Convention scheduled for 19 August where the party officially nominates its candidate for president is past the 7 August deadline to certify presidential candidates on the Ohio ballot

…

I am left to conclude that the Democratic National Committee must either move up its nominating convention or the Ohio General Assembly must act by May 9, 2024 (90 days prior to a new law’s effective date) to create an exception to this statutory requirement,”

Lmao, just incredible stuff from the Dems again

Argentina's Peronist Union for the Homeland bloc has announced that it will present a request to the Mercosur Parliament on April 29 for Ecuador to be suspended as an Associated State. The group has asked the countries to support it.

If Ukraine collapses, will Lockheed stock price increase or decrease? Should I sell my shares already? Or will Israel save them?

Apparently Donnie had an even larger haul from a fund raising event yesterday(?). Love that one of the things that's most being talked about in this election is the pissing contest that the rich mega donors are having.

Settler-on-settler violence:
https://nitter.poast.org/WAR3138/status/1776696650708189405

Brazilian diplomats give Israel Kratz a nickname.

Israel Katz has come to be called "Chancellor TikTok", in reference to Katz's penchant for playing with diplomacy and using social media to attack those he considers his enemies. A TikTok politician is usually someone who only does things to virtue signaling for their supporters.

The Israeli chancellor has earned the nickname since the beginning of the problem with the Brazilian government, resulting from Lula's comparison of the war against Palestine with what Hitler committed against the Jews.

On Friday (5/4), Katz attacked Lula again. The president made a mistake this week, during the Conference on the Rights of the Child, by saying that 12.3 million Palestinian children died in the Gaza Strip, when he actually meant 12,300. In reaction, Katz wrote on social media: "There should be a law obliging anyone who wants to become president to learn how to count."

Katz had already declared Lula "persona non grata" in February, after the president made the comparison with Hitler. After that, Brazilian Twitter users spammed all of Katz's posts with "Vampetaço" (naked photos of soccer player "Vampeta").

Real Progressives Live: Putin’s Russia with Esha Krishnaswamy (~2 hours)

Note: Real Progressives is run by a small group of MMT (Modern Monetary Theory)-literate American Marxist-Leninists that aims to teach MMT as an economics theory to the wider audience (skewing boomer-ish demographics). They have good position on Stalin, geopolitics i.e. China/Russia, and generally supportive of LGBT struggles (at least from my brief interaction with them online since it’s not a topic often brought up).

They run occasional webinars with economics experts and anti-imperialists, and this most recent webinar is about Russia (the title said Putin’s Russia, but it encompasses the Soviet history and also went a bit into China near the end as well - some interesting arguments about China also).

I do think that Esha’s presentation was a bit all over the place, and her answers were sometimes too brief to be satisfactory or she didn’t know too much about the subject (especially when an audience asks how the monetary theory of the USSR was similar to MMT, which I thought even I could have answered better).

But generally I learned a few things about the USSR and Russia I didn’t know about, so if you have an hour or two to spend, take a listen.

China central bank to set up $70 billion tech re-lending programme

Elon Musk causes a diplomatic problem in Brazil. X (Twitter) may be banned in Brazil.

After threats from Elon Musk, Brazil's supreme court judge Alexandre Moraes orders an investigation into the billionaire's conduct and orders Twitter not to disobey court orders

'Social networks are not lawless land! Social networks are no man's land,' the judge wrote in capital letters in his decision.

After successive attacks from the businessman, Moraes' decision came out in the middle of the night on Sunday. According to the judge, Musk committed the irregular practices of using social networks to spread disinformation and destabilize institutions of the democratic rule of law:

"In the present hypothesis, therefore, the use of illegal mechanisms by 'X' is characterized; as well as the presence of strong indications of intent by the CEO of the social network 'X', Elon Musk, in the criminal instrumentalization previously pointed out and investigated in several inquiries," wrote Moraes.

After threats from billionaire Elon Musk, owner of the social network X (formerly Twitter), Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) ordered that the businessman's conduct be investigated in a new inquiry. He also included Musk among those investigated in the existing inquiry into digital militias.

Moraes also ordered the X network not to disobey any orders from the Brazilian courts. He also imposed a fine of R$100,000 for each profile he reactivates irregularly.

Moraes said he saw signs of obstruction of justice and incitement to crime in Musk's behavior in recent days. On Saturday (6), Musk attacked Moraes' decisions in the investigations led by the minister. The businessman also threatened to reactivate the profiles of X users blocked by the courts.

Moraes is the rapporteur of investigations such as:

• Digital militias: which investigates actions orchestrated on networks to spread false information and hate speech, with the aim of undermining institutions and democracy.

• The January 8 case: which investigates the attempted coup in Brazil by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

In the course of these investigations, over the last few years, Moraes ordered the social networks to block the accounts of some of those being investigated. According to the minister, they were using the platforms to commit the irregular practices under investigation.

Musk decided to confront the minister. On Saturday, he published the following provocation above a post by Moraes on X: "Why are you demanding so much censorship in Brazil?".

Then, still on Saturday, Musk threatened that the platform would reactivate the blocked accounts, in contempt of court, even if, according to Musk, this would cost the company closure in Brazil and damage profits.

This Sunday, the billionaire posted a picture of Moraes and said that he is the "Darth Vader" of Brazil, in reference to the villain from the Star Wars film franchise.

After successive attacks from the businessman, Moraes' decision came out in the middle of the night on Sunday. According to the minister, Musk committed the irregular practices of using social networks to spread disinformation and destabilize institutions of the democratic rule of law.

He also said that platforms must follow the Constitution, under penalty of being held accountable for their actions. For Moraes, X and Musk affront Brazil's sovereignty.

"The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, the incitement to crime, the public threat of disobedience to court orders and the future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect Brazil's sovereignty and reinforce the connection of the malicious criminal instrumentalization of the activities of the former Twitter, now X," said the minister.

Musk's statements sparked backlash among politicians and authorities. The Minister of the Attorney General's Office (AGU), Jorge Messias, said that Brazil needs to approve regulation of social networks to prevent "billionaires living abroad" from attacking the democratic rule of law.

"It is urgent to regulate social networks. We can't live in a society where billionaires living abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law by breaking court orders and threatening our authorities. Social peace is non-negotiable," Messias wrote.

João Brant, Secretary for Digital Policies at the President's Secretariat for Communication, also defended the regulation of networks. He also said that Musk, in writing his attacks on Moraes, despises Brazilian justice.

"Elon Musk's attitude shows his contempt for Brazilian justice. He responds politically to the buzz of the last few days by rehashing old decisions and takes the opportunity to make agitation and extreme right-wing propaganda. Of course, there may be different opinions about the decisions of the Supreme Court and the TSE, but that's not what this is about. Musk decided to defend coup plotters and escalate the issue for political (possibly also commercial) reasons," said Brant.

The president of the Federal Court of Auditors, Bruno Dantas, said that "freedom of expression is a fundamental right that has never, anywhere in the world, meant licentiousness to break the law or attack a country's institutions".

Minister Paulo Pimenta, from the Presidency's Social Communication Secretariat, commented on Moraes' decision. He said that Musk would not intimidate Brazil.

"We will not be intimidated. Our country is sovereign and no one is going to impose their authoritarian will and enforce the logic that money makes their 'business model' above the Federal Constitution," he wrote.

Through cooperation between the Brazilian Federal Police and the FBI, US authorities can serve search and seizure warrants at the homes of the investigated Elon Musk, owner of Twitter.

The order could be issued at any time by Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Federal Supreme Court.

I refuse to believe that false flags are a thing (I haven’t looked into the idea because I’m scared) but I just saw a story from local news outlets about how the department of homeland security is warning people to watch out for potential “Moscow-related attacks” on large gatherings

Isn’t there a big eclipse coming up

Several countries have expressed support for the Mexican government and condemned the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, which was ordered by Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa.

Ecuador received no support, not even from the United States. The United States condemned the action and called for the two countries to go to the negotiating table and resolve the problems through diplomacy.

Countries like Spain and Portugal also condemned the invasion. Also this Sunday, an image circulated on Ecuadorian social networks, in which a government document states that it would ban the exit and entry of private planes to and from Mexico.

The Ecuadorian government responded hours later, through the Minister of Transportation and Public Works, saying that the image was false, and that the government had not made such a ban.

He also said that the government would open an investigation into the matter. The Ecuadorean government later went public and acknowledged that the document about the ban on flights to and from Mexico was real. The government also said that the document should not have been leaked, and called for the resignation of the person responsible.