darkcalling

joined 5 years ago
sorted by: new top controversial old
Cope in c/shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Democrats didn’t introduce it. It’s a ballot initiative (submitted by private citizens) and the writers named it that but it’ll get a number instead if it’s voted on and if it becomes law it will be as prop #x.

Democrats are not that cool in California or anywhere.

Just typical reactionary distortion of California. Though this is not smart given how many reactionaries agree with what happened in NY.

With fluoride under siege and a shortage of dentists, rural America risks surge of tooth decay in c/us_news@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 months ago

John Birch society perhaps. They were pushing it by the 60s and Kubrick made fun of them in Dr Strangelove.

YouTube Predator Catchers are a net negative for society in c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 26 points 3 months ago (9 children)

It's begging to be weaponized against LGBTQ people to push selective cases to push the narrative that they're all like that, just as the Nazis had regular columns on "Jewish crime" to give the impression the Jews were all criminals. Or to be used as a cover. I think in Russia there were stings for gay people done along similar lines, filmed and they'd often accuse them of being child molesters, of being after kids which was the homophobic narrative there.

It's a very sick individual-centered, glory-seeking approach to a problem which is fundamentally that capitalist cops don't invest serious resources in this, are often predators themselves, etc because they don't exist to protect the citizens but to protect capital. The solution then isn't these individualist acts of violence and attempts at mob justice but collective action, not for views, not for clicks, not to portray oneself as some sort of hero but to actually tackle the problem. It's also of course an issue of the family, of the lack of community involvement in each others lives which makes isolating kids easier. But that would require actual work, community-building, effort, it wouldn't be dramatic, it wouldn't stoke the egos of those involved, it wouldn't sell on youtube, so nothing is done.

The Nuclear War Plan for Iran in c/worldnews@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Nuclear umbrella's are interesting to talk about but I think they're a bluff against any kind of peer power. Washington is not going to get LA, NYC, Dallas, Denver, San Diego, Boston, Washington DC and a hundred other American cities wiped off the map to avenge say Seoul getting nuked or Berlin getting nuked by the DPRK or Russia respectively.

Because nuclear war is hard to do in a limited way between nuclear powers. A nuclear power can nuke a non-nuclear power in a limited way because the non-nuclear power cannot respond with any nukes let alone a full barrage that completely destroys them. But once you hit back at a nuclear power that can wipe you off the map the doctrine states any limited strike is only an attempt to blind you and suppress your response before a full strike, you can't know what is or isn't coming in terms of more so protocol is launch a full response and at that point both parties are destroyed and those do no good to the umbrella party which previously was still intact and spared and could undertake other choices against the attacking party.

Likewise I'd have doubts if China extended a nuclear umbrella to say Iran that they'd be willing to hit the US with a nuke because the US hit Iran.

Certainly the US has a lot more to lose as does France in hitting back a big nuclear power than say China who is still a rising power, still does not have any kind of vassals, whose only interests in security are immediate neighbors like Vietnam/DPRK that they've assisted in the past militarily. But even there I think it would be a hard choice to make watching say the DPRK in flames but knowing if you hit the Americans back that Beijing and every other city in China will be in flames as well.

The US might buy such an umbrella for the DPRK and say Vietnam from China and not hit them but they wouldn't buy it for say Pakistan I think because of the dissimilarities there. Likewise the US probably buys Russia's threats to defend Belarus because well they've backed them into a corner, they know they've backed them into a corner and they have almost nothing left. The US on the other hand and France can stand to lose a lot, they have a lot of countries and/or ocean between them and enemy states like Russia/China.

I think it's easier to turn the other cheek unless you really think you can suppress the enemy's response.

FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado in c/us_news@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 26 points 3 months ago

I'm worried that they arrested this guy and his wife and disappeared them to a torture facility under the notion that they're spies because they chatted with colleagues about work topics while in China thus giving away valuable 'murican knowledge and advantage to the dastardly Chinese. Either that or they got lucky and skipped the country first, hope it's that one but I'd expect they'd be saying something.

The Nuclear War Plan for Iran in c/worldnews@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Well in a way they would be but the US wants to be the one to actually field the weapons. The zionists have been saying they might resort to using their nukes and Trump and the US given the strategic situation are saying, "no, if they're used, we'll use them to assert our power and dominance and deterrence and enhance our credibility as an empire that can still fuck you up if you don't obey us". Plus the US doing it vs the zionist entity means less blow-back for the zionist entity directly. If the zionists do it, with the current climate against them through much of the world a BDS movement might build to a fever-pitch amid calls to completely isolate the outlaw state which would be a headache at least for the US requiring them to pour more resources in. But if the US does it, well the US is vital to world trade and though they're pissing people off with tariffs presently it's not practical to attempt to strangle them from a consumer point of view via buying choices and pressure campaigns given their size, reach, financial, economic, cultural, etc power.

And best of all with the US they have Trump in power who has been sold as an aberration. They can simply push him out or he'll die and then they paint his actions as too far, as being those of a dictator and that the US has changed(tm) and was like that then but has learned and is now better and a perfect angel.

Mostly the US fears its vassals nuclearizing and gaining independence from them that way. Very few strategic enemy countries to the US don't already have nuclear weapons already so the risk of proliferation is not really seen as a problem in using nukes. Vietnam still isn't likely to pursue a nuclear weapons program but even if they were they're important enough to China that the US couldn't invade without Chinese retaliation anyways. Other than that who is there? The AES alliance in Africa might have the raw uranium to make nuclear weapons possible but they lack the industry, the science, the knowledge, and the base to put them together and build ICBMs anywhere near fast enough to be able to create a credible deterrent (though they are close enough to Europe they could get by with shorter range missiles able to hit 2500miles away in say Berlin or Paris and use that to threaten the US into backing off, still even that would take a lot of work).

Importantly using nuclear weapons in defense of a vassal would the US may think re-assure other vassals like occupied Korea who have been murmuring about acquiring their own nukes, would re-assure them not to try and do that but that the US will use nukes in their favor if the time comes (hint: it won't as long as the DPRK can hit numerous cities in the US mainland in retaliation which it should be able to soon). So it would be a credibility building maneuver after Ukraine's humiliation.

The Nuclear War Plan for Iran in c/worldnews@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I've often wondered and worried about this.

It's easy to be anti using nukes against another nuclear power that can completely destroy your country in retaliation (e.g. Russia), it's not so common when the enemy is a non-nuclear power who your simulations show would defeat you in a conventional war leaving you humiliated, weakened, and looking both for the whole world.

In such a situation it's obvious the option there if you'd lose in a conventional war is to deploy nuclear weapons. When you're the US you already have far too many of them for deterrence needs, they're decaying, after Ukraine your credibility is in question and nuking a smaller power that can't do the same back would send a message to the whole world: it doesn't matter if we can't defeat you conventionally, if our interests demand it we will obliterate you using nuclear weapons to maintain our empire and hegemony.

It won't cow China or Russia, it will cause them to build up even more capabilities and become alarmed but both already are to some degree by US saber rattling and actions in Ukraine as well as talk of actions in the SCS. But it doesn't have to, the point then is it cows smaller regional powers to not dare to challenge the US, to know there is ZERO HOPE, (hope has been killed so to speak) of resisting if the US deems there to be a strong enough imperative. That you either bend over and submit at our sanctions or you pray you're not important enough to war over because if the US goes to war and you're important enough and you start defeating them, they'll just nuke you. That's the message it sends. That you cannot win against the US unless you're a nuclear power and to nuclear powers it signals the US may be run by mad men who would even use nukes against them knowing they might be destroyed in the counter-attack.

For some countries becoming a nuclear power is possible but not for most. It's a time-consuming and expensive process to not only develop multiple, dozens of nuclear warheads but the capability to deliver them as payback intercontinentally to the US via ICBMs. It's also a process you cannot hide and once the US knows they might be tempted to nuke you to stop you from getting any further to say nothing of sanctioning and blockading you as they have done with the DPRK.

The thing is, what was stopping this from being done before was the US image, the propaganda narrative of this liberal/progressive shining city on a hill type place contrasted against "authoritarian" "dictatorships" of bad-places(tm), that it would look incredibly bad. But with Trump they've made a turn, no more of that, no more DEI, traditional values, traditional values and so on. Naked strength. And this I think is tied back to Ukraine, which was the moment they learned all that work, all that propaganda wasn't enough to get the global south on their side at which point some faction (which I believe has power now) said basically well we need to revert to the old ways of hard power and intimidation and open gangsterism then, hence allowing Musk to tear down the edifices of this old way of trying to shape the world, to bulldoze them in favor of this new policy, this new naked oppression and power.

More than that I'm afraid that Russia's constant threats of having to use their nuclear weapons against the west if they got directly involved, of outlining a policy where if a defeat is imminent they reserve the right to use them IF such a defeat was in a war of strategic importance necessary to the survival of the nation. I'm afraid their successful usage of this has only emboldened US planners to think and plan along similar lines and logic, the precedent is there so to speak for them. For the US defeat in any war against an important regional power like Iran would be a danger to the survival of their nation-empire so under this rational they could easily justify it using this kind of thinking. The west will never miss a beat to weaponize the desperation of a weaker country (Russia compared to US+NATO) to advance the conversation, the window of the acceptable in their interests.

And it makes sense from a cold calculating point of view. Most countries are not nuclear powers, those that are will not intervene and get in a direct war with the US to protect non-nuclear power countries who are not immediate neighbors and vital to security and interests (e.g. Vietnam and Korea for China, Ukraine, Georgia for Russia).

I honestly worry about Yemen, compared to Iran that at least has some strategic importance to Russia and some economic importance to China in the B&R, who would be outraged on any grounds but moral ones if Yemen was nuked by the US or the zionists? Not many major powers and it would be awfully tempting to make an example of them, perhaps even to use it to send a message to Iran before hitting them with nuclear weapons that they're serious and will use them.

Fact is also the US and the zionist entity smell blood in the water. Iran has been routed, they are on the back foot and have suffered major strategic defeats. Their influence and power is at a multi-decade low. They've lost Syria and Assad, Hezbollah is dazed and somewhat weakened with Lebanon pounded and their supply lines through Syria now cut meaning Hezbollah is weakened after being decapitated. Hamas can't be in a great position, there's a question I'd say of how much ammunition and weaponry they may still have for a prolonged war and sad as it is to say the zionist entity has basically won the battle, they've won US support to take and colonize parts of Gaza, they've destroyed large parts of it, they're trying to squeeze out the remaining Palestinians and I have doubts the Sunni Muslims in the region actually would do anything but some protests and flag burnings, nothing to topple the US regimes that rule them or cause the US to think twice in other words.

So the US wants to inflict the final blow on Iran and lock down hegemony and control of west Asia as part of an ability to cut off the belt and road, to encircle and blockade China as well as control that vital crossroads. Trump would accept their fealty, their subjugation to the US, their renunciation of ties with China, their pledge of obedience to the zionist entity, their in other words removal from the chessboard as an impediment to US control of the region.

CK Hutchison will not sign deal to sell strategic Panama ports next week, sources say in c/worldnews@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Hmmm. Will we see the US invade to claim the canal anyways? Or perhaps just lean on Panama to invalidate the contracts and seize the ports to sell to the US? Guess we'll find out how much bite the US has left.

There's also this:

The person added the development does not mean the deal has been called off, and April 2 is not a hard deadline. The second source, who also declined to be identified for similar reasons, said talks are still very much underway.

Also apparently these are only 2 of 5 ports around the canal. It's interesting, the way the US propaganda rags phrase it China has exclusive control of both ends of the canal because of these ports.

Probably the company tries to do something to ease the pressure at home and give the US something but what that might be I don't know. I could see them trying to do something like selling some sort of stake but not outright control to Blackrock, something that can be presented as not capitulating in China but as a successful raid and seizing of value and a veto over port use by the US or something. I don't see the US backing down on this and when push comes to shove they can just use sanctions to pressure the company.

RT - Israel hits out at Ukrainian glorification of WWII Nazi collaborator in c/worldnews@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 3 months ago

This is just the usual Russia pokes and prods the zionist entity's local ambassador and they issue a condemnation because they want good relations with Russia. Meanwhile the main entity itself, its government with the borders of its colonization is silent. This has been going on for several years now. The main entity refuses to condemn because well they like Nazis and there's no benefit to them.

Is the next revolutionary wave near? in c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 3 months ago

The west has been brewing fascism in Ukraine longer than most people on this website have been alive. Besides that those Banderite fascist militias aren't going to all do suicide attacks on Europe or just give up and sit in their homes watching football.

They're going to be fighting and they are organized, armed, trained, and still have ties to western intelligence which would likely want to prevent a communist take-over as communists would be against NATO, against the US and align with Russia, China, etc.

Some of these Hitlerite worshippers will put on business suits, act as liberals, tone down the use of swastikas and so on but still make sure to find time to use the resources of state or their old friends to beat up and murder any leftists gathering in numbers and this will be fully, emphatically supported by the EU and the US.

Most Ukrainian Nazis have not been killed. They are blocking units who retreat first and keep the conscripts fighting. They will be alive at the end of the war.

They've indoctrinated a whole generation of kids into Nazism in their schools and before that liberalism.

Besides that China is strictly non-interventionist. Russia, their big important ally would not at all be okay with them meddling and setting up socialism there right on their border nor is China in the habit of exporting revolutionary thought. They very much would like for the newly joined regions in the east to be solid voting blocks for Putin's party of United Russia as they likely will be as Putin is the one who saved them.

The western parts of Ukraine have long had larger problems with fascist/nationalist sympathies as well as liberal aspirations. Very good chance they double down on fascism and stabbed in the back myth or just seek to become EU euro-liberal types thinking that's the formula for success. Fact is the Eastern parts are already part of Russia as far as Russia is concerned and they were the ones with the strongest pro-Soviet nostalgia I would bet and probably with the strongest communist movements.

Is the next revolutionary wave near? in c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Russia would accept Indian peacekeepers. The west would find India more palatable and Russia has a long-standing relationship. India would also not mind showing up China which it sees as a rival power though I'm not sure that's enough reason for them to agree to something like this given the target it might paint on their back among Banderites and other Nazis.

Russia truthfully would probably also accept a coalition of peacekeepers made up of multiple countries under a narrow UN mandate which seems plausible as a possibility. Likely in that case it would be a basket of Chinese, Indian, European, etc.

edit And if you think EU liberals are freaking out now about imminent war with Russia, they would find it completely unacceptable to have Chinese troops in their war-path. The US also would find Chinese presence unacceptable due to rampant sinophobia. Trump would sooner I think try and ram through Russian troops to act as peacekeepers than allow a Chinese military presence near Europe. He and the US empire leadership are kicking them out of civilian port ownership deals everywhere they can.

Realistically, what happens if China goes to war with Taiwan? (or hopefully reunifies peacefully) in c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml
[–] darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Prices of electronics would skyrocket (likely permanently for the west) and there would be shortages. The west would either cut off buying from fabs there immediately leading to a supply crunch or they'd blow them up also leading to a supply crunch but one impacting the mainland as well.

82
Fourth African state sanctions Ukraine for ‘supporting terrorism’ (www.rt.com)
 

(Archive link)

Niger says the move is in solidarity with Mali, which has accused Kiev of backing rebels involved in deadly attacks

Niger has severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine in response to Kiev’s alleged support for militants who killed dozens of Malian soldiers and Russian Wagner Group contractors in an attack last month.

The West African state’s decision on Tuesday came just two days after Mali took the same step, accusing Kiev of supporting international terrorism. Ukrainian officials had earlier indicated that Kiev had assisted Tuareg rebels who staged an attack in the village of Tinzaouaten.

In an interview following the incident, Ukraine’s spy agency spokesman, Andrey Yusov, indicated on national TV that the insurgents had received intelligence to conduct a “successful military operation against Russian war criminals.” He warned that “there will be more to come.” Ukraine’s embassy in Senegal posted the video – now deleted – on its Facebook page along with a comment from Ambassador Yury Pivovarov, who said “there will certainly be other results.”

Niamey’s military government spokesman, Amadou Abdramane, called the remarks “indecent” and “unacceptable” in an address on state TV late on Tuesday, claiming that they characterize “acts of aggression.”

“Niger, in total solidarity with the government and people of Mali, has decided in all sovereignty [...] to sever diplomatic relations between the Republic of Niger and Ukraine with immediate effect,” Abdramane said.

Since 2012, Mali has been embroiled in a jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. A decade-long French military mission failed to quell the violence, which has spilled over to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. All three former French colonies, led by their militaries, have severed defense ties with Paris and formed the Alliance of Sahel States to combat terrorism.

Russia, which Bamako, Niamey, and Ouagadougou regard as a strategic security ally, has agreed to assist the troubled Sahel states in combating long-standing terrorist threats.

More coverage: "Ukraine spreading ‘terrorism’ around the world – Moscow" https://www.rt.com/russia/602260-ukrainian-terrorism-zakharova-kursk/ (archive link)

Kiev is doing the bidding of the deep states of Western nations, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed

“Things will get worse in terms of Ukrainian terrorism spreading across the planet. It’s not a joke,” Zakharova warned.

People in power in Kiev have turned their country into a “terrorist gang” doing the dirty work for Western nations and their “deep state structures,” the diplomat claimed. She also asked what it would take to convince the American people that by bankrolling Ukraine, their government was sponsoring terrorism.

53
Ukraine denies involvement in Mali rebel attack | Mali severs diplomatic ties (www.rt.com)
 

(Archive link)

Ukraine has denied playing a role in a recent terrorist attack in Mali that killed soldiers and Russian Wagner Group contractors, condemning the West African nation’s decision to cut diplomatic ties with Kiev as shortsighted.

Mali’s transitional government announced on Sunday that it was “immediately” breaking off diplomatic relations with Ukraine in response to comments by Kiev officials in support of Tuareg militants who carried out the deadly assault last month.

Tuareg fighters ambushed a military convoy carrying Malian defense forces and Wagner contractors in the village of Tinzaouaten near the Algerian border in late July, killing scores of servicemen and destroying multiple trucks. Andrey Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence service (GUR), stated on Ukrainian TV that his agents had provided “necessary information” to the rebels, allowing them to conduct a “successful military operation.”

He vowed that there would be “more to come.” Ukraine’s embassy in Senegal posted the interview on its Facebook page, along with a comment from Ambassador Yury Pivovarov, who said: “There will certainly be other results.” The video has since been deleted.

Bamako expressed “deep shock” at the officials’ “subversive” remarks, declaring that they demonstrate Ukraine’s “support for terrorism in Africa, in the Sahel, and more specifically in Mali.”

“Mali fully endorses the diagnosis made by the Russian Federation, which for years has been warning the world of the neo-Nazi and villainous character of the Ukrainian authorities, now allies of international terrorism and shows no willingness to implement the Ukrainian people’s aspirations for peace and stability,” the Malian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Bamako announced a series of measures, including legal proceedings, in response to Yusov and Pivovarov’s comments, claiming they “constitute acts of terrorism and advocacy of terrorism.” The landlocked state also urged other African countries and the international community to denounce Ukraine’s actions, which “threaten the stability” of the continent.

“Ukraine unconditionally adheres to the norms of international law, the inviolability of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.

Mali has been embroiled in a jihadist insurgency since 2012, which, according to the UN, has killed thousands and displaced over 375,000 people. A French military operation failed to end the violence, which has spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. Earlier this year, the three former French colonies formed the Alliance of Sahel States to combat terrorism. They have also sought increased security cooperation with Russia.

25
Ukraine training militants in Africa – slain Russian military blogger (www.rt.com)
 

(Archive link)

Kiev has reportedly been training Tuareg insurgents in Mali

Evidence of Ukrainian involvement in Mali has been uncovered by the administrator of the Russian military Telegram channel GREY ZONE, which is believed to be affiliated with the Wagner private military company, RT has learned.

Photos obtained by the blogger and supplied to RT purport to show Ukrainian instructors, allegedly linked to Kiev’s military intelligence agency, the GUR, working in the African country.

The instructors have allegedly been training local Tuareg separatist militants, as well as covertly bringing at least two groups of them to Ukraine to teach them to use FPV drones.

While the blogger had been preparing a report to shed more light on the affair, he ultimately ended up being killed in an ambush by the Tuaregs over the weekend.

[the blogger] had reportedly been traveling with a private military company and Malian army convoy in the vicinity of the village of Tinzawaten, close to the country’s border with Algeria. The area has recently seen hostilities between Tuareg insurgents and the country’s military, the latter of which is reportedly supported by the Wagner Group.

Gruesome footage circulating online shows scores of bodies and several burned-out vehicles in the aftermath of the ambush, while the militants are seen celebrating their success. During the fight, a military helicopter that had been trying to provide cover for the ambushed group was damaged and had to make an emergency landing, footage suggests. Several fighters, some of whom were presumably with the private military company, ended up taken prisoner by the Tuaregs.

31
Russiagate cheerleaders, spy agency links: what you need to know about CrowdStrike, the firm behind the global IT outage (www.rt.com)
 

(Archive Link)

Before a faulty software update dragged the company’s name into global headlines on Friday, Crowdstrike had a long history of involvement with US intelligence agencies, and played a key role in the ‘Russiagate’ hoax.

Crowdstrike released a defective update to its cloud-based security software on Friday that left an array of users around the world – including banks, airlines, media outlets, and government agencies – unable to use their IT systems.

The company issued a fix within several hours of the problem being identified, but thousands of flights remained canceled or delayed into Friday afternoon, while hospitals, police departments, and businesses continued to report issues getting back online.

[...]

Less than a year after Crowdstrike was founded, Kurtz and Alperovitch brought on board former FBI Executive Assistant Director Shawn Henry to head up its cybersecurity consultation wing. By 2014, Henry’s department was issuing a flurry of hacking and espionage accusations against China, Russia, and North Korea, with information provided by Crowdstrike helping the US Justice Department issue indictments that summer against five Chinese military officers who allegedly hacked US energy corporations.

[...]

Crowdstrike was hired by the US Democratic National Committee to investigate the theft of data from its servers in 2016. Published by WikiLeaks, the data revealed that the DNC had rigged the Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders, and that Hillary Clinton had effectively paid to control the committee.

Crowdstrike concluded that Russia was behind the breach, with Henry testifying to Congress that the company “saw activity that we believed was consistent with activity we’d seen previously and had associated with the Russian government.”

24
ICC backtracks on Israel arrest warrants (www.rt.com)
 

(Archive link)

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have postponed a decision on whether arrest warrants should be issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The delay came after the ICC allowed the UK to submit legal arguments against the jurisdiction over the issue.

According to court documents made public on Thursday, the UK filed a request with the ICC on June 10 to provide written observations on whether “the court can exercise jurisdiction over Israeli nationals, in circumstances where Palestine cannot exercise criminal jurisdiction over Israeli nationals (under) the Oslo Accords.”

[...]

The UK’s argument is that the Palestinian authorities cannot have jurisdiction over Israeli nationals under the terms of the Oslo Accords, and so it cannot transfer that jurisdiction over to the ICC to prosecute Israelis.

“The United Kingdom submits that the Chamber, pursuant to Article 19(1) of the Rome Statute, ‘is required to make an initial determination of jurisdiction in resolving the application for arrest warrants’ of which ‘[t]he Oslo Accords issue necessarily forms part,’” the ICC said on Thursday.

The judges added that the court would also accept submissions from other interested parties on the legal issue until July 12.

According to media reports, granting the UK’s request could delay for months the decision on arrest warrants for Israeli officials, which ICC prosecutor Karim Khan requested in May.

32
The death of the petrodollar: What really happened between the US and Saudis? (www.rt.com)
 

News about the expiration of a Washington-Riyadh deal may be fake, but an arrangement that is key to the dollar’s success has eroded

It is said that works of fiction can often convey certain truths better than a newswire. That is perhaps the light in which to view reports circulating around the internet recently about the expiration of a 50-year ‘petrodollar’ treaty between the US and Saudi Arabia.

The agreement is a piece of fiction. The spurious reports appear to have originated in India or in the murky tangle of websites aimed at crypto investors. There was an official agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia signed in June of 1974 and another, secret one reached later that year according to which the Saudis were promised military aid in exchange for recycling their oil proceeds into US Treasuries. The deal whereby Riyadh would sell its oil in dollars was informal, and there was no expiration date. The petrodollar system as we have come to known largely grew organically.

However, this fiction points to an underlying truth: the petrodollar has entered a long twilight from which there will be no return. No other economic arrangement has done more to ensure American preeminence over the last half-century. Yet in its essence it represented an implicit oil backing to the dollar that would be maintained. To borrow an idea originally expressed by financial analyst Luke Gromen, it is ultimately America’s inability and unwillingness to maintain this backing that is gradually dooming the system.

Origins of the Petro-Dollar

When the US abandoned the dollar’s gold peg in 1971, thus ending the Bretton Woods arrangement, the international financial system was thrown into chaos. What ensued was a turbulent period of high inflation and major adjustments to the new reality of free-floating currencies. Untethered from even the pretense of a gold backing, the dollar unsurprisingly devalued and inflation ran rampant. By the summer of 1973, it had lost a fifth of its value against other major currencies.

This should have marked the end of the two and a half decades of post-war dollar primacy. And yet quite a peculiar thing happened: the dollar’s role as reserve currency and primary instrument of trade only expanded. The reason is that the Americans managed to steer the oil trade into dollars, starting with the Saudis in 1974 and soon thereafter extending to all of OPEC. This established a de facto commodity backing for the dollar. Since the oil market is much larger than the gold market, it actually gave the dollar even greater scope.

In exchange for agreeing to sell their oil in dollars, Saudi Arabia became a protectorate of the US military. Many have seen this deal as a Godfather-like “offer you can’t refuse” for the Saudis.

It probably was a good bet. Many things have transpired in Saudi Arabia in the intervening half century, but one thing that has resolutely not happened is a color revolution or US regime-change operation.

[...]

China introduced yuan-priced oil contracts in 2018 as part of an effort to make its currency tradable globally. [...] What got the needle moving was the Ukraine conflict – or rather Washington’s unhinged reaction to it. And here we arrive at the meeting point of a deep-seated economic trend and a geopolitical flashpoint.

With Moscow limited by sanctions in where it could market its oil, China significantly ramped up purchases of discounted Russian crude, with settlement in yuan. Legendary analyst Zoltan Pozsar called this development “dusk for the petrodollar… and dawn for the petroyuan.”

It goes beyond China. The BRICS group as a whole has, as a stated objective, increasing trade in local currencies, an objective that has gained urgency in light of Washington's capricious and overbearing use of sanctions. India, the world’s third-biggest oil importer and consumer, has become the biggest buyer of seaborne Russian crude since 2022, paying for Russian crude in rupees, dirhams, and yuan. As the BRICS group consolidates and new financial infrastructure and trade networks coalesce, the non-dollar oil trade will only grow.

In January 2023, Saudi Arabia even openly stated that it was willing to sell oil in currencies other than the dollar, [...] November of that year, the Kingdom sealed a currency swap deal with China, a surefire precursor of plans to do future business in local currencies.

The petrodollar arrangement has been very good for the Saudis and historically they have not shown a strong eagerness to give it up. No doubt contributing to this is a certain hesitancy about breaking with the Americans. Things do not tend to end well for the leadership of oil-producing countries who stop doing the bidding of the US. Yet the times are changing and Riyadh seems to sense that.

[...]

The US is now fighting to maintain all the benefits of this broken system, the responsibility for which it is neither equipped nor willing to take any longer. If the dollar isn’t pegged to gold and isn’t even implicitly backed by oil, and Washington won’t preserve its integrity, then it is hardly up to the task of facilitating trade in critical resources. A system as deeply entrenched as the petrodollar won't disappear overnight, but when its economic foundation has eroded, it can only be maintained for so long by bluster and smoke and mirrors.

(Archive link)

1
Russia fears a NATO attack. Here’s why. (www.rt.com)
 

As its Ukrainian proxy faces defeat, the US-led bloc is becoming increasingly reckless. Where will this hubris lead us?

By Igor Istomin, acting head of the Department of Applied Analysis of International Problems at MGIMO University.

The possibility of a trans-European war is closer today than at any time since the mid-20th century. Western analysts discuss various scenarios of a possible conflict, while officials openly speculate about its likelihood and even discuss specific time horizons.

In a recent speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the actions of Western governments had brought the world “to the point of no return.” At the same time, domestic debate in Russia is dominated by the belief that the US and its allies recognize the catastrophic risks of a direct military confrontation with Moscow and will seek to avoid it for reasons of self-preservation.

Such judgments are based on the assumption that the West, despite its aggressiveness and arrogance, is guided in its policies by a rational balance of benefits and costs based on the existing balance of power. Past experience, however, does not convince us that the US-led bloc is capable of pursuing a balanced, calculated course.

A recent admission by US President Joe Biden is telling: “If we ever let Ukraine fail, mark my words, you will see Poland go, and you will see all these countries along Russia’s actual border negotiate on their own.” Thus, the good old ‘domino theory’ is back in the minds of Western strategists.

[...]

The growing adventurism is clearly visible in the debate over the deployment of Western troops in Ukraine. Moreover, not only hysterical Western European leaders, but also seemingly more responsible American generals have begun to speak out on the issue. For example, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles Brown, has concluded that the deployment of NATO troops to the country is inevitable.

[...]

NATO members are openly practising combat scenarios in potential theatres in Eastern and Northern Europe. Much emphasis is being placed on learning lessons from the armed struggle in Ukraine. To this end, a special center is being set up in Bydgoszcz, Poland, to ensure a regular exchange of experience between Western and Ukrainian military personnel.

The weak link in the Western effort has long been the limited capabilities of its military industry. Nevertheless, NATO members are paying increasing attention to overcoming this problem. **It would be foolhardy to expect that they will not be able to increase production over time, including by increasing Western European firms’ links with the US military-industrial complex. **

(Full article at the link)

(Archive link)

It seems to me the west is salami slicing their way towards an open conflict with Russia with NATO boots on the ground. This can only end in disaster and possibly full nuclear war. Time is not a friend for Russia here. The west has been caught without proper production but they're not going to sit on their hands and continue to fail to fix that forever, they're doing so more slowly than Russia obviously and sure some of the more high tech stuff they'll never be able to churn out like Russia/China but they don't need that stuff to fight and win a war. So the longer this goes on the more the west is able to get production into play that gets them closer to being able to either better supply their Ukrainian fodder to inflict damages on Russia and/or to be confident they have enough to enter the conflict directly as NATO troops and to challenge Russia, most likely by setting up defensive lines and waiting for Russia to hit them first, trying to force a Korea DMZ situation that still allows the US to station nukes near Russia and to build up massive armies and arms.

22
Palestinian fired over Gaza censorship sues Meta – Reuters (www.reuters.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml to c/palestine@lemmygrad.ml
0 comments fedilink
 

RT: https://www.rt.com/news/598796-meta-palestinian-gaza-censorship/

(Archive link to RT article)

A former engineer has accused Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – of being biased against Palestinians, according to Reuters.

Ferras Hamad filed a lawsuit in California on Tuesday, alleging discrimination and wrongful termination. He had been an engineer on Meta’s machine learning team from 2021 until February.

Meta was deleting internal employee messages by Palestinian-Amerians that mentioned the deaths of their relatives in Gaza and investigated their use of Palestinian flag emojis, Hamad alleged. By contrast, no such investigations were launched into employees using Israeli or Ukrainian flags, he said.

According to Hamad, he was fired after pointing out irregularities with an emergency procedure for handling “site events” (SEV), when it resulted in restrictions on Instagram posts by Palestinian personalities. In one case, he said in the complaint, a short video by photojournalist Motaz Azaiza showed a destroyed building in Gaza, but Meta had labeled it as pornographic.

When Hamad attempted to resolve that case, Meta told him he was violating the policy barring employees from dealing with the accounts of people they knew personally – although Hamad insists he is not personally acquainted with Azaiza.

The former engineer had handled SEV cases related to Gaza, Israel and Ukraine before, and obtained confirmation in writing that this was part of his job description. He filed an internal discrimination complaint in January, but was fired a few days later.

Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Mark Zuckerberg’s social media behemoth has been widely criticized by human rights groups over its censorship of content related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – specifically, suppressing the Palestinian viewpoint. Almost 200 employees have raised concerns about the matter in an open letter to Zuckerberg and other executives, earlier this year.

Just another reminder that Meta is western regime propaganda operation. It viciously censors against pro-Palestinian content, is all-in on upholding the zionist narrative and is shameless about it. It has no official policy on record saying in its rules that you can't be pro-Palestinian and instead misuses various systems such as the aforementioned flagging videos of rubble as porn to suppress, censor, deplatform, and limit reach of anything contrary to the settler zionist narrative.

Reminder that Meta is also one of the driving forces behind the Tik-tok ban (spending tons of money lobbying for it and pushing a campaign that targeted it and painted it as a threat when it was in fact a competitor) and that finally got the bill and ban passed was the fact too much pro-Palestinian content was being posted and not censored quickly enough compared to Meta which outraged the pro-genocide US congress who had been debating but not actually passing the tik-tok ban for months before.

28
Prospects of peaceful reunification with Taiwan have ‘eroded’ – Beijing (www.rt.com)
 

China’s defense chief has warned that Taipei is being dragged into a “dangerous situation”

China’s efforts toward “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan have been consistently undermined by “separatist and external forces,” Defense Minister Dong Jun has claimed. He also warned that anyone attempting to separate Taiwan from China would end up facing “self-destruction.”

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue conference in Singapore on Sunday, Dong Jun stressed that “the Taiwan question is the core of China’s core interests” aligned with the One-China principle and safeguarded by the Chinese military.

He blasted the Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan (DPP) for “pursuing separation in an incremental way, erasing the Chinese identity of Taiwan and severing social, historical, and cultural links across the Taiwan Strait.” He went on to accuse “separatists” of betraying “the Chinese nation and their ancestors.”

“They will be nailed to the pillar of shame in history,” the defense chief stressed, before condemning “external interfering forces” – without naming them directly – for “hollowing out” the One-China principle by selling weapons to Taipei and attempting to use Taiwan to “contain China.”

“These malicious intentions are dragging Taiwan into a dangerous situation,” the minister warned. “China remains committed to peaceful reunification; however, this prospect is increasingly being eroded by separatists for Taiwan independence and foreign forces,” he said. Dong added that “resolute actions” would be taken to “curb Taiwan independence” and ensure that such an eventuality never comes to pass.

(Archive link)

57
US may have secretly approved attack on Russian nuclear radar – Austrian military (www.rt.com)
 

(Archive link)

Reported Ukrainian attack on a key radar site could trigger retaliation, an expert analysis shared by the Austrian armed forces says

A reported Ukrainian attack on a Russian early-warning radar installation may have been approved by the US and poses the risk of a nuclear escalation, an analysis published by the Austrian armed forces has warned.

Ukrainian sources claimed last week that Kiev had delivered a strike at a Voronezh-DM site in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Region, near the city of Armavir.

The alleged operation is significant, considering that the facility is part of Russian nuclear deterrence, according to a text by Colonel Markus Reisner and posted by the Austrian military on Sunday.

It is unlikely that attacking the radar station had direct military value for Kiev, Reisner argues. Disabling it would reduce the amount of intelligence that Russia collects on Ukrainian launches of US-donated ATACMS ballistic missiles, he added. But the station is designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles that fly at altitudes much higher than the tactical weapons used by Ukraine.

The expert suggested that the alleged attack may have been a US-sanctioned response to Moscow’s reminders that it could use non-strategic nuclear weapons under certain circumstances. Senior Ukrainian and Western officials have called those statements a form of blackmail. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin ordered tactical nuclear exercises in the Southern Military District, which borders Ukraine. Moscow said this was in response to increasingly hostile rhetoric by Western officials.

”If this is indeed the case, two further conclusions can be drawn: first, the situation in Ukraine is extremely serious and, second, the war over Ukraine has escalated again,” Reisner wrote. Such an attack could qualify for a nuclear retaliation, the colonel added.

Russia’s nuclear doctrine says that its nuclear arsenal may be used in four scenarios, one of which is “enemy action against critical Russian government and military facilities, the disabling of which would prevent a nuclear response.”

Over-the-horizon radar stations, such as the Voronezh-DM, are meant to detect ICBM launches and inform the national leadership, at which point officials can make a decision on whether to fire back.

The Russian Defense Ministry has so far not commented on the alleged attack.

This is incredibly dangerous. This is brazen flirting with nuclear war.

1
NATO surrounding Russia with network of cyber labs – Moscow (www.rt.com)
 

(Archive link)

Such facilities are being setup in Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Romania, a high-ranking Russian diplomat has said

NATO is trying to surround Russia with a network of cyber-laboratories as part of its hybrid war against the country, the Special Representative of the Russian President for International Cooperation on Information Security, Artur Lyukmanov, has warned.

The US-led bloc has long been working on developing ways to take on Russia in the infosphere, Lyukmanov said in an interview with RIA-Novosti on Saturday.

Ukraine has been its “main testing ground,” with hackers from the country “carrying out acts of electronic sabotage under the close guidance of the curators from NATO,” he said.

Russia is aware of “entire units of Western intelligence services and armed forces being sent to Kiev” to assist the Ukrainians with hacking activities, the diplomat, who also heads the Department of International Information Security at Russia’s Foreign Ministry, added.

According to the diplomat, in the future NATO also plans to open such facilities in Georgia and Moldova, who are not members of the bloc.

“Under the auspices of the Pentagon, cyber exercises are being carried out systematically, during which scenarios of confrontation with [Russia] in the digital realm are being tested,” he said.

1
Opinion: The West is one step away from openly backing Taiwan separatism (www.rt.com)
 

(Archive link)

While insisting they don’t support “unilateral changes” to the status quo, US and EU officials won’t criticize Taipei’s blatant provocation

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) initiated a significant event, Operation Joint Sword-2024A, on Thursday. It involved the creation of a simulated blockade around the self-governing island of Taiwan, as well as areas around the islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu, and Dongyin. It’s worth noting that this is the largest military drill of its kind in a year and follows the recent inauguration of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, who has made it clear that he will escalate the issue of formal independence.

During his address, Lai broke his promise of maintaining the status quo with the mainland. As Kathrine Hille, writing for the Financial Times, noted, he “used conspicuously different language, while also spelling out some of the facts that most jar Beijing.”

While Tsai Ing-wen, Lai’s predecessor, would reference “the Beijing authorities” or “the other side of the Strait,” which do not explicitly state that China and Taiwan are separate entities, the new leader mentioned “China” throughout his address.

He referred to “Taiwan” and “the Republic of China, Taiwan,” saying that “some call this land the Republic of China, some call it the Republic of China Taiwan, and some, Taiwan; but whichever of these names we ourselves or our international friends choose to call our nation, we will resonate and shine all the same.”

Referring to Taiwan as a “nation,” Lai quoted the Republic of China’s constitution – the state that lost control of the mainland to Communist forces during the Chinese Civil War in 1949 but still remains in Taiwan – to say that “the Republic of China Taiwan is a sovereign, independent nation in which sovereignty lies in the hands of the people” (of ROC nationality). “This tells us clearly: the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other,” he concluded.

Officials from the Kuomintang (KMT) party, the long-time ruling party before the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s electoral success in recent years, were quick to criticize Lai’s speech. For instance, former Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou’s office harshly criticized him for introducing a “new two-country theory,” adding that his “direct and explicit stance is tantamount to leaning towards Taiwan independence, leading to an unprecedentedly dangerous situation between the two sides of the strait.”

view more: ‹ prev next ›