SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
newsMy weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
::: spoiler preamble Aside from the virtually daily Iranian strikes on the Oman route, the main threat that the US is facing in this newest phase of the war is logistics. With Bahrain and the UAE unsafe, the closest safest port in the theater is Diego Garcia, which is over 2000 miles away. Either the aircraft carriers would have to go to Diego Garcia to restock, which would be even less planes and missiles available should hostilities restart suddenly, or goods have to be shuttled to the aircraft carriers from Diego Garcia. This latter option appears to be too much for the US to handle, with widespread reports of dwindling supplies and morale on the USS Abraham Lincoln (and, to a lesser extent, the USS George HW Bush). These reports have culminated in the USS George Washington being sent from the Pacific to replace the Lincoln, which was the sole aircraft carrier in that whole theater. There are six more carriers in maintenance, leaving two carriers left that could even hypothetically be called upon should the USS George HW Bush need replacement; both are currently undergoing training, and of these two, the USS Theodore Roosevelt might be available soon; perhaps even as soon as September. I'm unsure whether the Roosevelt will be sent to the Pacific to replace the Washington, or if it'll be sent to the Middle East to replace the Bush. Nonetheless, that the situation has deteriorated to the point where we can speculate on how very limited naval vessels are going to be distributed is yet one more indication among many of the decline of US naval power. The symbolism was too much for me to ignore, hence the title: the last aircraft carrier in the Pacific being forced to leave, and not under military pressure in some hypothetical war against China, but to try and relieve logistical burdens elsewhere in a war of the US's own making.
This joins Trump's statements that the US will only be taking a very limited part in the South Korean military exercises. This is nominally because of the "great ties" the US shares with the DPRK, but this is an embarrassingly transparent face-saving statement. The DPRK is an increasingly major potential threat to South Korea, a major regional power and economy, but are also helping Russia with both manpower and materiel and getting military experience and data on their missiles' effectiveness in return.
The US's Under Secretary of War, Elbridge Colby, recently visited the Philippines. There, he gave a speech that promised to continue the construction of a defensive network that would deny China the possibility of militarily advancing through the Pacific by stationing US forces inside friendly countries. This is the NATO approach: our mere presence will deter the enemy because they would not want to start a direct war with us, and in exchange, you have to hand over billions upon billions of dollars. Colby gave the Philippines that most backhanded of compliments, the "model ally", and stated that the US was “definitely not disengaging from Asia”. My "We aren't pivoting away from Asia" shirt has people asking a lot of questions that are already answered by my shirt.
If you're a US-friendly country in the Pacific and possess even the slightest sense of self-preservation, you are surely feeling nervous. The US is moving its aircraft carrier out of the theater. Overseas, you've seen how Iran - a very strong regional country, to be sure, but not as powerful as the industrial juggernaut and nuclear superpower that is China - has nonetheless crippled several undefendable US bases, has exhausted a very large amount of American air defense missiles, is holding the global economy hostage, and the US can seemingly do nothing to stop them. You have to be looking at your own US bases, likely expensive and unpopular, and all the money you're handing over to the US, and glancing at how the Gulf states are bickering of being betrayed by their ally who promised them protection and immediately retreated. You have to be looking at your economy and its dependence on China. You have to be looking at Ukraine, and the unenviable state of destruction it has been driven to as a puppet of the US. You have to be looking at China itself, and how its military is rapidly developing in all fields, and how it's even catching up on microchip development. In all, you have to be really hoping that China is serious that they only plan a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, and that the US will not do something incredibly, stupidly reckless in their decline. :::
Last week's thread is here.
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::: spoiler The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
:::
::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
:::
(BBC) Sacked Ukrainian defence minister calls for presidential election
zeeman could clap back and say ackshually, elections are a tool of the bourgeoisie 🤣 #democracy
CNN is claiming this. Is there something to the claims or is it just more propaganda?
Iran is losing control of the Strait of Hormuz | CNN Business
More than 80% of vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks have taken the Omani route – a UN-authorized shipping channel that Iran vehemently opposes – according to Kpler, which tracks ships using transponders and satellite data.
Iran, declaring the strait under its control, has attacked dozens of ships that tried to to travel the waterway via the north coast of Oman. Despite the risk, most ships have recently chosen to ignore Iran’s demands and cross the strait with the promise of protection from US naval forces.
“It increasingly looks like Iran has at least partially lost control of the strait,” said Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler.
::: spoiler Full article The battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz has become the focal point of the Iran war. Over the past several months, both Iran and the United States have claimed the upper hand – and the competing rhetoric has caused considerable confusion and doubt.
At the moment, however, the evidence is clear: The United States, patrolling the strait with its navy, is gaining ground – and Iran is losing much of its control of the critical waterway.
More than 80% of vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks have taken the Omani route – a UN-authorized shipping channel that Iran vehemently opposes – according to Kpler, which tracks ships using transponders and satellite data.
Iran, declaring the strait under its control, has attacked dozens of ships that tried to to travel the waterway via the north coast of Oman. Despite the risk, most ships have recently chosen to ignore Iran’s demands and cross the strait with the promise of protection from US naval forces.
“It increasingly looks like Iran has at least partially lost control of the strait,” said Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler.
Shifting control
That stands in stark contrast to a month ago, when Kpler observed virtually no shipping traffic via the Omani route. The sharp reduction in traffic around Iran’s preferred route has prevented Iran from charging tolls on ship traffic through the strait – as it did in the spring.
The expiration of the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran this week in theory allows Iran to begin charging tolls again. But it doesn’t appear the country has been able to, according to Kpler.
“Iran’s request to collect tolls is something that most Middle East folks don’t want to do and haven’t been doing,” said Dan Pickering, founder and chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners. “So the Oman route absolutely makes the most sense.”
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have chartered Very Large Crude oil Carriers (VLCCs) – the biggest oil tankers – to transit out of the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz, then transfering the oil to customers’ tankers outside the danger zone in the Gulf of Oman, according to Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates.
To evade Iran’s attacks, they’ve turned their transponders off, often for weeks on end. That so-called dark traffic appears to have eluded some data-tracking services like Kpler as well. Although some can be picked up on satellite, it’s harder to track via traditional means.
But the United States, with significant military force on the water, has eyes on all ships passing through the strait and has reported significantly higher oil shipping numbers than most traditional estimates had previously suggested.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright last week said that combined oil transits through the strait and rerouted around the waterway totaled around 15 million barrels per day over the course of a week – much closer to the 20-million-barrel average from before the war.
Lack of clarity
That led President Donald Trump to declare Monday that the United States has “total control over the strait,” a questionable claim he has reiterated often throughout the conflict. Iran’s continued attacks and oil flows still well below pre-war levels suggest the United States does not fully control the Strait of Hormuz.
But neither does Iran.
“If their goal is to be ‘in charge,’ then I’d say they were never completely in control to start with,” said Pickering. “It feels like their goal is deterrence, in order to be validated as in-control. I think they are still deterring.”
But if tankers are really getting as much oil through the strait as the United States claims, then Iran’s deterrence and control of the Strait of Hormuz is diminished compared to what it was a month or two ago.
Complicating matters: Oman and Iran are engaging in talks to restore freedom of navigation through the strait – absent the United States – much to Trump’s dismay. It’s not clear how those discussions will affect oil traffic or control of the waterway.
“I would take all the information and headlines ‘under advisement,’” said Lipow. “But it is fair to say that Iran has partially lost control of the strait.”
:::
Kpler doesn't say how many ships or barrels in total those alleged 80% make up, and also admit to not having complete information.
That so-called dark traffic appears to have eluded some data-tracking services like Kpler as well.
One week ago there were reports of an average 4 ships/day passing the strait, compared to pre-war 100 ships/day (Al-Jazeera: https://archive.is/FLaSx)
"Dark traffic" has to still be fairly detectable. Tankers are enormous, move slowly, the strait is 24 miles wide at its narrowest, and whatever route they're using is avoiding part of it. Iran can put drones in the air pretty easily, too.
If CNN said the sky was blue then I would have to look outside to double check.
I saw this discussion earlier in the mega, but I'm still taking this claim with a grain of salt.
Might be wishful thinking on my part, but I say that based on the fact that the SPR continues to dwindle despite salt cave infrastructure concerns, and that crack spreads keep rising. Sure, the uptick in crack spread could be due to diminished refining capacity, but it also suggests that spot prices are rising since futures remain stable, backwardation, which is what's going on right now, typical of a situation where oil supply is tight.
I just don't see how oil flow through the Strait is even close to normalizing. No way it's 15 million barrels per day. Sure, 80% of successful transits will likely be going through the Omani route, but we're talking about 80% of 10% of normal flow. Besides, that volume of oil won't be shipped uninsured, so who's insuring these shadow tankers? The US? The UAE? This is a point lots of people made during the first round of attacks way back in March; even if Iran hasn't closed the Strait, nobody will provide insurance to the tankers trying to transit, so it might as well be closed.
Honestly, who the hell knows what's truly going on over there, but I'd trust the IRGC over Pickering Energy Partners and the Energy Secretary under Trump, at least until we get some evidence that's more solid than the statements of people who are probably actively engaging in oil futures price manipulation.
More than 80% of vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks
80% of how many?
because of oman and the promise of us protection, iran has lost control over the strait of hormuz
that is why the us must now bomb oman or something
German state "smashes" already dissolved pro-Palestinian association
::: spoiler article text The association, founded in 2022, has not existed for almost two years: In November 2024, Palästina e. V., based in Frankfurt am Main, publicly declared that it had disbanded in order to avoid an impending ban by the Hessian repressive organs. According to the publicly accessible platform Nord Data, it has been officially in "liquidation" at the latest since the beginning of 2025, as provided for by German association law. However, this did not prevent the prosecuting authorities from continuing to make life difficult for both real and supposed former members of the association: at the end of January 2025, raids took place against the Palestine solidarity movement in and around Frankfurt, which were justified by an ongoing ban proceedings against Palästina e. V. Today, Tuesday, the official ban by the Hessian Ministry of the Interior was carried out – accompanied by renewed raids in Frankfurt am Main and Mannheim.
Police searched five apartments in Frankfurt am Main and one in Mannheim. According to the Interior Ministry, 35 police officers were deployed in Frankfurt alone. Hesse's Interior Minister Roman Poseck (CDU) was quoted as saying: "By banning the association 'Palästina e. V.', Hesse is sending a clear signal for the determined action of the constitutional state and against the rise of anti-Semitism." Poseck recently made it clear what he means by "rule of law" and "anti-Semitism" by pushing through his legislative initiative in the Federal Council, intended to criminalise the denial of Israel's so-called "right to exist", which was sharply criticised by lawyers and classified as incompatible with the fundamental right to freedom of expression.
Aitak Barani, liquidator of the dissolved association, explained to UZ: "The ban is both absurd and dangerous at the same time. Absurd, because Palästina e. V. no longer exists at all and thus the supposed reason for this procedure is obsolete. Dangerous, because the state is trying something here: it denies that the association has been dissolved, and now it simply defines for itself who is supposedly belonging to it. It is thus trying to criminalise a large part of the Palestine solidarity movement in Frankfurt and beyond, as far as Baden-Württemberg." This evening [18.8; a.n.] there will be rallies in Frankfurt am Main and Mannheim against this criminalisation.
Palästina e. V. is not the first organisation that was banned in the FRG because of its political commitment to Palestine. In 1972, the West German authorities declared the Unions of Palestinian Workers (GUPA) and Students (GUPS) illegal. In November 2023, the Federal Ministry of the Interior banned the German branch of the Palestinian prisoner solidarity network "Samidoun" and also issued a ban on Hamas from operating. On 16 May 2024, the group "Palestine Solidarity Duisburg" (PSDU) was banned as well.
In November 2024, the Bundestag also passed a resolution with the votes of the CDU/CSU, FDP, SPD, Greens, and AfD, in which it expressed its intention to ban the worldwide BDS movement in Germany. Other Palestine solidarity organisations, including the Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Near East e. V., have been targeted by ban campaigns from politicians and authorities.
The ban order against Palästina e. V., which is available to UZ, at first glance shows numerous parallels to the bans of Samidoun and PSDU. What is particularly striking is the purely political argumentation, which simply ignores international law and freedom of expression and is strictly in line with the Zionist German raison d'État. Any criticism of Israel is defamed as "anti-Semitic". Additionally, the authorities are once again working with contact guilt – for example, with the Jewish Voice, the PSDU, the DKP, or the Communist Organisation (KO). Among the curiosities of the document is a passage stating that the world-renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, whose books Palästina e. V. recommended as *introductory literature", is supposedly "generally accused of taking one-sided sides (for the Palestinians, UZ) and of working in a methodologically inaccurate manner". :::
I love Judeo-Christian western values of freeze peach and the free exchange in the marketplace of ideas!
White House officials have reportedly communicated to political allies that they are shifting their strategy, going from “hammer Iran ASAP” to “strangle them” over time.
Today marks day 171 of the Iran War.
Ah, back to the strategy of the previous 50 years. I bet that will work now that Iran is much more powerful and politically cohesive.
Holy shit they are absolutely brain-dead, "strangle Iran" is only viable if Iran doesn't control the straits, otherwise the clock is ticking not for Iran but for your worthless client states along the Gulf, these fail sons of proper imperialists can't seem to hold more than one conditionality in their heads at any given time
This really is end-state imperial incompetence manifested in real-time
GCC will build pipelines and new terminals for billions of dollars to reroute the flow away from SoH, and Iran will blow them apart for $2k per drone.
But the straight doesn't matter
that's what lgbt+ means
let's go bomb that qipeline
Guy getting strangled: I can wait this out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuCcJfiIzbc
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
don't take iran immediately, siege it
~~Zerg rush~~ don't do the negotiations.
Russia is shipping UAV components, ammunition, and TNT to Iran via the Caspian Sea, a route that is difficult to effectively disrupt.
- Slava Intel
Dealing with closures of the Bab el Mandeb and Hormuz simultaneously has proved too much of a trifle to serve as sufficient challenge for the US Navy, I say they take a little exercise and sail a carrier strike group through the Bosporus and show those Ruskis what for!
not ambitious enough. I say they sail over the caucasus and reach the caspian sea itself
Tel Aviv attacked Syria again:
"The Syrian Arab Republic condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli airstrikes targeting the Abu Duhur military air base in Idlib province and considers them an unjustified act of aggression," the statement says, urging the international community and the United Nations Security Council to "take a firm position against Israel’s repeated violations of Syrian sovereignty." In this regard, Damascus accused Israel of seeking to provoke an escalation and of attempting to "undermine efforts to strengthen stability" in the Middle East.
https://tass.com/world/2174641
urging the international community and the United Nations Security Council to "take a firm position against Israel’s repeated violations of Syrian sovereignty."
lol okay, but when the Entity was violating the sovereignty of all of Syria's neighbors where was Syria's "firm position" then? what an impotent, pathetic and self serving statement
Tel Aviv attacked
Syria again
I thought the zionazis were the ones being attacked for a second
In this regard, Damascus accused Israel of seeking to provoke an escalation and of attempting to "undermine efforts to strengthen stability" in the Middle East.
Watch out, next they'll accuse water of being wet
Whipped dog makes public statement condemning being whipped saying, "This is not what we stand for" and "hope master will still give me treats".
The UAE suspends all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran
- Middle East Spectator
The impotent death throes of a discarded client state that doesn't know it's already dead
Interesting. I've heard that UAE has given Iran a lot of gold/money for guarantees that they won't be targeted anymore via drones. UAE denies this of course. So is this a cover? Is there actually something to this?
Counting or not counting ~~gang violence~~ diplomatic jets laden with gold and cash?
LandSpace, a Chinese commercial launch providers, is set to launch its second flight of the Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) partially reusable launch vehicle from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Inner Mongolia. The first flight back in December 2025 successfully launched a mass simulator, but the first stage engines failed to reignite for the landing attempt. Although western spaceflight enthusiasts and media are bound to call it a falcon 9 ripoff, their only similarities are that they have 9 engines, landing legs, and gridfins. ZQ-3 uses completely different engines, different fuels, different materials, and has a much cooler paint job. The launch is going to be in about an hour and a half from now, I will post the link to a livestream of the launch when I find one.
Zhuque-3 has become the the fifth ever launch vehicle to successfully recover a first stage. Along with the Long March-10A/B means that China now has two launch vehicles capable of first stage reuse, just over a month ago they had no such launch vehicles. China has rapidly become the number 2 country in space and is rapidly catching up to the us in terms of launch capabilities. Video of the landing.
It's worth noting that the Zhuque-3 is considerably girthier than the Falcon-9, and unlike the Falcon-9, it actually has the ability to launch things into low-earth-orbit and return to the launch site. Currently, although the Falcon-9 can technically do so for higher, easier orbits, it has a minuscule payload capacity when returning to the launch site - this is why it lands downrange on a barge. ZQ-3 also uses much cleaner burning Methane fuel, meaning that it might stay usable after launch; the Falcon-9's kerosene engines are dirty and require a full rebuild before the rocket can be used agian.
Both rockets use 1950's Soviet gridfin tech, which for some reason people often assume SpaceX invented?
China currently has very high commercial launch demand too, so LandSpace won't have any shortage of customers.
Both rockets use 1950's Soviet gridfin tech, which for some reason people often assume SpaceX invented?
I swear every time I see a post about a Soyuz launch people in the comments are surprised that it has gridfins and then they claim that the Russians copied it! Even the N1 (pbuh) had gridfins! Americans really are so chauvinistic that they really think that they invented everything.
for all the times we've said "i wish we lived in the world they think we do" i've never had it be because they implied the soviets had a time machine.
Looks like no livestreams were approved. Liftoff has been confirmed though.
just to be clear, the chinese (having reclaimed the communist gridfin technology) now posses 2 functioning reusable rockets and in that regard eclipsed the united states in a matter of months? (jade dome when)
Damn that thing looks so cool
They also may be settling in Thailand and India.
There is something that really boils my blood about Israelis doing this shit whilst we have to sit in the UK hearing about how evil our immigrants are for daring to try and live quiet lives without being executed in the street.
Can't wait to see videos of these people getting their teeth kicked in. Big daddy USA isn't protecting your ass in the Philippines.
Theyve had a massive presence in India for decades, with whole towns putting all their signage in Hebrew just to cater to Israelis.
I wonder how far this will go before they start getting redacted the second people realize who these shitheads are when they start doing this stuff.
Lots of places to lose a body in the jungle
Winning friends everywhere they go
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I wonder what the Finnish SDP is up to these days?
[2026-08-14] SDP: Immigrants should abandon "incompatible practices" from home countries
I guess with an unpopular fascist Finns Party, someone has to step up to ensure that the Fascism dial is dialed...
Some key excerpts...
The paper therefore called for immigrants to commit to "the core values and norms of Finnish society" and abandon "incompatible practices from their countries of origin."
It proposes exploring whether access to social security could be linked to language studies, while also considering limits on free interpreting services after immigrants have lived in Finland for a certain period.
The government have been ratcheting up the language study requirement in the past few years. I guess it's never enough. It was always a proxy for but now they have to immiserate the people that do manage to make it in.
That's pretty similar to the joint racist screed published by Italian fascist leader Giorgia Meloni and Danish social democrat leader Mette Frederiksen about a week ago.
They claimed to defend the Christian heritage of Europe in order to "protect our nations and Europe". Claiming that "ordinary people" has "paid far too high a price for uncontrolled immigration" for too long, they accused undocumented immigrants of being the cause of serious crime, drug trafficking, sexual assault and — the fucking gall — degraded welfare services.
Frederiksen and Meloni declared that respecting laws are not enough, refugees and immigrants - undocumented as well as documented - also have to "respect european values", whatever the hell that is, and should not "force a way of life on us that we do not want", which is presumably something the big muslamic world conspiracy is just about to do.
The two brownshirts made no specific policy proposals outside of reiterating their demand for offshore black site concentration camps for refugees as well as other "innovative solutions outside of Europe" to protect the racial purity of the continent.
Meter Frederiksen is the lesser evil in Danish politics, by the way. Her competition is even more Hitlerite.
“protect our nations and Europe”.
Protecting europe by keeping out anyone who knows how to make food that's not shit. However I've never managed to get anyone agree immigration is good because hey do you like Vietnamese food or not?
As a reminder, Europe is a peninsula, you could walk there from China. Anyway, the unified europe movement didn't kick off until 1918, I wonder what inspired that? 🤔
Claiming that "ordinary people" has "paid far too high a price for uncontrolled immigration" for too long, they accused undocumented immigrants of being the cause of serious crime, drug trafficking, sexual assault and — the fucking gall — degraded welfare services.
Maybe Europeans should have thought about this before they went around the world murdering and pillaging then
The government have been ratcheting up the language study requirement in the past few years
what does this look like in finland? do you need to demonstrate proficiency in finnish within some number of years of arriving?
There is a language requirement to gain citizenship in Finland. You have to pass the YKI exam at a certain proficiency in one of the two national languages, Finnish or Swedish. Swedish is obviously much easier for speakers of Germanic languages like English, so this is what most choose, but it is less practical than Finnish, unless you live along the western coast such as Turku or Vaasa, where there are relatively high rates of Swedish language.
Beginning of 2026 they significantly increased the requirements for permanent residence which is different from citizenship. At a time when Finland has the highest unemployment rate in the EU — many of these being immigrants without language skills required by almost all jobs — they set the bar higher, and much higher if unemployed. If you lose your basis for temporary residence from when you arrived, there is a real risk of being made to leave. This is what permanent residence protects you from; once permanent, you don’t need to prove you have a valid basis for being there.
I suppose the main point of my post is that there is a ratchet process occurring. Finland has relatively lax immigration compared with some countries, but that holdover from more social-democratic eras is rapidly changing. Furthermore, tying social security to language is more severe than simply requiring language for citizenship.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf: ‘The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the U.S. naval blockade is lifted, our frozen assets are released, oil sanctions are removed, threats and military operations on all fronts end, and all terms of the Memorandum of Understanding are fulfilled.’
- Middle East Spectator
Bolivia: The President's most senior adviser has just been arrested for hiring hitmen to murder his girlfriend (she was shot 3 times in a luxury hotel). He's a far-right extremist from Argentina, and has now become the main link between the US govt & the Latin American right.
WaPo - Pentagon weighing smaller U.S. military presence in Gulf once Iran war ends
An analysis, which the Defense Dept. said was not yet a formal review, will help address whether to rebuild strike-battered bases, said people familiar with the matter.
The layout is a bit fubar but still readable because a graphic broke and "exploded". Here's a screengrab from the WaPo page.
lol none of this is ever getting rebuilt
Yeah right? Framing it as some sort of active choice on the part of the us instead of it being the reality they're having to deal with is so funny. Real "you can't fire me, I quit!" energy
Didn't they have (illegal) bases in Syria? Did they pull out after their terrorist took power?
Rapprochement between Lula and Alcolumbre unlocks Lula's agendas in the Senate just before elections.
::: spoiler Article
The rapprochement between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers' Party) and the President of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (Brazilian Union Party - Conservative), is beginning to produce concrete effects on the Congressional agenda. After weeks of estrangement, the two share a public agenda in Amapá this Monday (17), while priority government agendas advance in the House commanded by the senator.
On Friday (14), Alcolumbre forwarded to the Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ) the PEC that provides for the end of the 6×1 schedule . The proposal had been stalled in the Senate since it was approved by the Chamber in May. The move occurred after meetings between Lula and the president of Congress, who also unblocked the processing of the Public Security PEC .
The advancement of the 6x1 proposal brings back to the center of the debate one of the main social banners of the Lula government. The proposal foresees the reduction of the workday and the end of the model in which workers work six days followed by only one day of rest. In the Senate, the expectation is that the matter will be analyzed by the CCJ (Committee on Constitution, Justice and Citizenship) and may be included in the concentrated effort planned for the end of August and the beginning of September.
The Public Security Amendment is also among the priorities that have gained new momentum with the resumption of dialogue between the Executive Branch and the Senate. The text expands the Union's participation in the coordination of public security policies and is treated by the government as an important piece in reorganizing federal action in the sector.
The movement is occurring precisely at the official start of the electoral race. On one side, Lula is trying to transform the reduction of working hours and the expansion of labor rights into a concrete agenda for the coming months. On the other, the opposition is already signaling that it intends to delay the discussion of the 6x1 (referring to the 6x1 reform of the electoral reform) until after the elections. The coordinator of Flávio Bolsonaro's (Liberal Party) campaign, Rogério Marinho (Liberal Party), argued that the topic should only be debated after the election.
The new rapport between Lula and Alcolumbre , therefore, has effects that go beyond Monday's agenda in Amapá. After the strain caused by the rejection of Jorge Messias's nomination to the Supreme Federal Court, the dialogue between the two is once again functioning as one of the keys to unlocking issues of interest to the government in the Senate, precisely at a time when Congress is becoming increasingly focused on the 2026 election campaign. :::
Israel [sic] is increasingly worried about collapsing public support in the US following its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza
Naming you're institute after a city in Germany to help cover for your genocide sure if an interesting choice.
Ok, I get it might not be, but still... Come on.
Well, Israel is Germany after all.
The imperialist chatbots already censor themselves to be at minimum both-sidesing Palestine.
Zionists know they've already lost damn near anyone capable of thinking for themselves so it makes sense they'd focus their propaganda on people who choose not to think because they think a chatbot can do their thinking for them
I had a lying machine randomly and inexplicably tell me krav maga is cool recently.
So, while people were on the streets because they lost their home, and have nothing to eat, the President of Colombia was throwing soccer/football balls at them as "gifts"...
Need the but tossing the paper towel after Hurricane Maria
soccer
(The Cradle) UN reveals only three percent of Gaza's farmland remains usable (https://thecradle.co/articles/un-reveals-only-three-percent-of-gazas-farmland-remains-usable)
The few Palestinian farmers still able to reach their land face a shortage of farming supplies due to Israel's ongoing blockade
Hitler could've salvaged his legacy if he just declared that his quarrel with the Jewish people was over while keeping them all in the camps with no food, water, or shelter.
Then again, the West™ are emptying their last barrels of oil to repair his reputation anyway.
Indonesia Earthquake Leaves 68 Dead and Nearly 10,000 Displaced - Telesur English
::: spoiler Article
More than 200 people were injured after Saturday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake. On Monday, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) confirmed that 9,963 Indonesians are staying in makeshift shelters after being forced to leave their homes Saturday due to the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck off the coast of Flores island, killing 68 people and injuring more than 200.
The NGO Save the Children said many earthquake victims are spending the night outside their homes in the hardest-hit areas of East Nusa Tenggara province. In the Ende district, nearly 1,000 aftershocks have been recorded, including a magnitude 5.7 earthquake that shook Flores again Monday. About 2 million people live on the island. No tsunami warning was issued.
The new earthquake occurred at 8:46 a.m. local time at a depth of 35.6 kilometers (22.1 miles), with its epicenter 42.1 kilometers (26.2 miles) north-northwest of Ende, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported. In the past 24 hours, the Indonesian government raised the death toll from the earthquake from 53 to 68. The quake also injured 213 people with injuries of varying severity, while rescue teams continue searching for survivors. Authorities have not provided a figure for the number of people missing.
At least 914 homes were virtually destroyed in cities such as Ende — the most populated locality on Flores, with nearly 90,000 residents — while 93 schools and 36 health centers suffered partial or severe damage. The report, released by the United Nations Humanitarian Aid Coordination Agency, includes data on minor damage to numerous roads in the province, located about 600 kilometers from the island of Bali.
In response to the growing scale of the disaster, the provincial government declared a state of emergency in the region for the next 14 days, with the aim of coordinating aid with central authorities. Similar measures have also been officially adopted in the affected districts and cities.
According to estimates by Save the Children, more than 8,000 children face safety risks after losing their homes, places of study, their parents’ or legal guardians’ sources of income, or because of delays in the arrival of humanitarian aid in some hard-to-reach areas. “People are distressed and scared, especially children and older adults,” the NGO said, urging authorities and humanitarian organizations to provide a comprehensive aid plan that prioritizes shelter and food but also includes other needs such as health and recreation.
Although the government of Prabowo Subianto has not requested international assistance, China offered Monday to provide aid.
Meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV sent a message of spiritual solidarity and closeness to those affected in Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, in which he “encourages ecclesiastical and civil authorities to continue providing humanitarian assistance and prays for emergency personnel dedicated to recovery efforts.”
Flores is an exception in the archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, with a majority Catholic population. Indonesia lies on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of intense seismic and volcanic activity where numerous earthquakes occur every year, most of them moderate. :::
Colombia Earthquake: 289 Dead as Devastating Rescue Operation Continues - Telesur English
::: spoiler Article
Colombia earthquake death toll reaches 289, with 3,935 injured and 320 missing as rescue teams and volunteers support affected communities.
The Colombia earthquake has killed at least 298 people, injured 3,935 and left 320 missing, according to the latest report from the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, known as UNGRD.
The 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck on August 10 at approximately 7:34 a.m. local time, with its epicenter near San José del Palmar in the department of Chocó.
The earthquake was felt across large areas of Colombia, including the western and central regions. Strong shaking affected cities and municipalities in Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Risaralda, Caldas and Quindío.
The UNGRD said the disaster had affected 115,461 people in 448 municipalities across 15 departments. More than 54,000 families were listed as victims or otherwise affected by the emergency.
The number of victims is expected to change as rescue teams reach isolated communities, search collapsed buildings and complete technical evaluations of the damage.
The official balance released on Saturday increased the death toll by six from the previous report. It also confirmed that 353 people had been rescued during the continuing search and rescue operation.
The earthquake caused extensive damage to homes and public buildings. Authorities recorded 81,506 damaged homes and 14,493 destroyed residences, while 66 buildings collapsed completely.
The destruction has displaced thousands of families and forced many communities to seek temporary shelter in schools, public buildings, sports facilities and open areas.
The crisis has also affected critical infrastructure. The UNGRD reported damage to 241 health centers, 2,612 educational institutions and 3,621 community facilities.
The damage to medical centers has complicated emergency care at a time when hospitals are receiving large numbers of injured people.
Schools have also been closed in several areas because of structural risks. Some educational facilities are being used as shelters or distribution centers for food, water and other supplies.
The transportation network suffered severe disruption. Authorities reported damage to 298 roads, 59 aqueducts, 44 vehicle bridges and five pedestrian bridges.
The destruction of roads and bridges has made it difficult to reach rural areas and deliver emergency supplies. Some communities remain isolated because landslides, collapsed structures and damaged routes have blocked access.
Five airports were also affected by the earthquake. The damage has complicated the movement of rescue personnel, medical teams, equipment and humanitarian aid.
The UNGRD has activated satellite-monitoring cooperation to improve its assessment of the affected areas. The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters provides access to satellite imagery that can help authorities identify damaged infrastructure and isolated communities.
The Colombia earthquake has triggered a large-scale search and rescue operation involving national and local authorities, firefighters, police officers, military personnel, medical workers and community volunteers.
Emergency teams continue searching for people believed to be trapped beneath the ruins of homes and public buildings. The operation is becoming more difficult as time passes, but authorities remain focused on locating survivors and recovering victims.
International assistance has also been approved. The UNGRD said Colombia would receive support from certified search and rescue teams from the United States, Ecuador and Israel.
Specialized teams can provide equipment for detecting people beneath rubble, removing concrete and stabilizing damaged structures.
Rescuers must work carefully because buildings damaged by the earthquake may collapse without warning. Engineers inspect structures before teams enter, while emergency personnel establish safety perimeters around unstable sites.
The recovery of survivors is only one part of the response. Teams are also providing medical care, evacuating residents from dangerous areas and assessing whether homes can be safely occupied.
Authorities are conducting technical censuses to identify the extent of the destruction and determine which families require shelter, food, water, medical services and financial assistance.
The earthquake has also affected animals. Official records list 578 animals impacted, of which 188 had been rescued by Saturday.
Veterinary teams and animal-protection groups have been working alongside rescue crews to remove animals from damaged homes, provide treatment and reunite them with their owners.
The inclusion of animal rescue in the emergency response is important because many families refuse to leave damaged areas without their pets. Protecting animals can also help reduce the emotional burden on children and displaced families.
The humanitarian response has required the coordination of national institutions, municipal governments and local communities. Emergency shelters must receive food, drinking water, blankets, hygiene products and medicines.
Authorities are also monitoring sanitation conditions. Damaged aqueducts and overcrowded shelters can increase the risk of waterborne diseases, particularly among children and older people.
The loss of homes has created an urgent need for temporary housing. Families whose residences were destroyed cannot return until engineers certify that the structures are safe.
In rural areas, residents face additional challenges because emergency teams must travel long distances over damaged roads. Some communities have limited access to communication networks and may not yet have received full assistance.
The government has called on citizens to follow official instructions and avoid entering dangerous areas. It has also urged people to rely on verified information during the rescue and relief operation. :::
‘There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’
The strait is open, gas is cheap and charlie kirk is still alive
: 'Source tells me the Straits are Open.
Please God'
"removed or detonated" is a pretty funny "or"
is actually a mine sweeper now.
: 'I told the captains, "If you hit a mine, that’s just a tremendous tax write-off, the greatest write-off you’ve ever seen," and they love it, they really do.'
Venezuela’s UK-Held Gold to Be Released to US Control, Foreign Audits
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/venezuelas-uk-held-gold-to-be-released-to-us-control-foreign-audits/
“The reserves, worth over $4 billion, will be deposited in a US Treasury account before eventual disbursement to support post-earthquake recovery.”
“ Following recent US-backed talks between the acting Delcy Rodríguez government and representatives of the defunct, opposition-majority parliament elected in 2015, the two sides agreed to work together to secure the unfreezing of the 31 tons of gold, worth around US $4.3 billion at current prices, to support post-earthquake recovery efforts.
Ramón López, a member of the opposition delegation, disclosed that the resources would be deposited in a US Treasury bank account and be subjected to external audits.
“The gold will be released with appropriate planning and control mechanisms,” he said in an interview. “[The gold] will be deposited in a US Treasury account and audited by international firms.”
López added that the resources will be used on housing and healthcare projects, as well as support for families who lost their homes in the June 24 double earthquake. “The expenses will be permanently audited,” he added.
The former deputy did not specify whether the gold would be transferred to the US or exchanged. The Rodríguez administration has not commented on the foreign custodianship of the country’s reserves.
The US-endorsed dialogue also saw the government and opposition agree to reform the Supreme Court (TSJ) and renew its justices. Appointing magistrates is a constitutional competency of the Venezuelan National Assembly, which already had a commission evaluating candidacies. The process will now restart.”
Particularly nasty excerpts:
“Luigi Pisella, appointed by Acting President Rodríguez to a commission evaluating state assets for privatization, recently stated that Washington is deducting the costs of its military operation from Venezuela’s oil revenues.“
“ The 2015 opposition-controlled parliament has administered billions of dollars worth of Venezuelan state assets abroad despite its term expiring in January 2021. Up until March 2026, Washington recognized the defunct opposition-led legislature as Caracas’ legitimate authority. Opposition figures, including former self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaidó, were implicated in major corruption allegations related to the handling of thecountry’s assets.”
Yeah this crazy to see even though it's not that surprising. Venezuela is never getting their gold back since this is straight up daylight robbery. As resources run out, climate collapse gets into higher gear and capitalism falls apart, imperial powers are becoming blatantly genocidal and ruthless (which they have always been, but tried to disguise at the very least).
On a bit of a tangent it blows my mind that Russia started the war without using up all their foreign reserves held in western countries. Maybe the liberal propaganda worked and people, including the not very liberal Russians, believed in the horseshit that was the rules based order.
imperial powers are becoming blatantly genocidal and ruthless (which they have always been, but tried to disguise at the very least).
The Cold War, while still full of genocidal violence, was also a period of one sort of imperialist restraint imposed by three factors: the power of the socialist world, liberal internationalism among the bourgeois ruling class, and the strong organization of the imperialist working class. These all combined to limit, but not eliminate, the imperialist world's ability to carry out horrifying global violence relative to the old era of inter-imperialist struggle, where the US and European powers could wield their colonial apparati against each other at a scale that would never be repeated again. The horrors of WWII in Europe created a liberal internationalism that was focused on white people getting along through subordination to the US while playing dipolomacy and aid with most global south states. The USSR posed too tempting an alternative to most of the world. The US and European working classes were still highly productive, and neoliberalism hadn't yet introduced a new period of hyper-extractivism of the Global South.
Then, after the illegal dissolution of the USSR, other forces also combined for a new sort of restraint. Liberal internationalism evolved into neoliberal overconfidence, and the empire was so certain of its power that it never needed to resort to violence at a scale like in Korea or Vietnam. Of course, every single one of these restraints created the condition for its own undoing, and that imperialist overconfidence has created an empire vaster than any in human history and just as riddled with destabilizing contradictions as any late-stage empire. The impending Chinese Century has compelled the empire to re-institute heavy handed violence that it thought it didn't need anymore. It's only really effective at 'Venezuela Ops', where the spec ops super soldiers that are genuinely terrifyingly effective and powerful can carry out precise and devastating moves. Sanctions are still powerful, but they're the most clear example of a tactic exhausting its strategic value the more it gets used. So now this world-spanning empire is slipping into the Old Ways, which it never really forgot, but which it had imagined itself too civilized to ever need again.
This is a great breakdown on how imperial strategy changed and then never really changed.
I do think that resource scarcity and climate collapse are also playing a role in this reversion to the old tactics and will be even stronger driving force in this change. Not to imply you don't think that, but more of a prediction on how things will go in the future. China though is investing massively in green energy and also is able to imho completely neutralize (even if at big cost) any imperial impositions the west might try to employ. But this will set back human progress a lot if you consider China with it's beneficial technological development in some areas (green energy in particular) as opposed to the death cult capitalism of the imperial west.
Probably there was no way to use up their foreign reserves in clearing houses without stopping trade or clearing with the west which would have sent klaxons and red lights blaring and screaming in alarm that Russia is about to invade Ukraine like the US earlier claimed they were thus undermining any element of surprise and perhaps allowing NATO to move troops in. I would say for the limited element of surprise it was a necessary sacrifice.
One must also remember Russia didn't see this spiraling into this long conflict. They expected and hoped that their special operation would pressure Ukraine into signing a deal and they'd pull back, Europeans would be angry but normalize in a short time. And the Ukrainians nearly signed that deal, Boris Johnson stopped them from doing that and convinced them to turn this into a war that Russia didn't want and hadn't committed itself to but was forced to undertake so as to not back down and assure its security.
Nono, my mom said that I own Hormuz, not you.
i like to imagine that he's literally claiming everything beneath that circle, including Dubai and a bunch of Oman
Bit idea: sell American citizen cruises to the strait
But literally if you were Israeli
I thought it was called the Arabian Gulf now
Gulf of America II actually.
(The cradle) Kataib Hezbollah says Iraqi resistance ‘running out of patience’ over govt crackdown (https://thecradle.co/articles/kataib-hezbollah-says-iraqi-resistance-running-out-of-patience-over-govt-crackdown)
The group demanded a US and Turkish withdrawal from Iraq while stressing that arms will not be discussed until Washington’s presence ‘ends completely’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/18/south-korea-president-trump-military-drills-control-opcon-kim-jong-un
Lee Jae Myung said on Tuesday that Seoul should proceed without disruption with the planned transfer, during his term, of wartime operational control, or Opcon, of South Korean forces from the US – a goal he and the government have long held.
“A strong alliance makes the foundation of security stronger, and strengthening our own capabilities increases our value and necessity as an ally,” Lee said in a cabinet meeting, describing the US-South Korea alliance and independent defence as mutually reinforcing.
May be posturing, but there is the underlying question of "how much will U.S. vassals tolerate before they reassess their foreign policy."
There is no "alliance" currently, despite what Lee says. Southern Korea is occupied territory under the military control of the United States with the assistance of local bourgeoisie. Any reduction in that occupation, whether removing troops, closing bases, or restoring military command to Koreans, is a necessary step to peace and reunification. Hopefully big steps are made. Every time the US gets less powerful on the peninsula, the Korean people are better able to more directly face their internal class conflicts and struggle for socialism.
it's crazy seeing how people describe RoK and Japan as US 'allies'. They're occupied territories with tens of thousands of foreign military stationed there. RoK's military is literally subservient to the US.
Being a Dem fundraiser/consultant is a really sweet gig. $390 million raised, of that $20 million went to actual candidates. Most of the "Fundraising" line item is just consultants paying money to their own companies or to their friends.
This investigation was originally developed for The New York Times, where it underwent eight months of editing, multiple rounds of fact-checking, and independent replication of the underlying methodology. The piece had a scheduled publication date when requests for comment were sent. It was only after the Times reached out to the subjects of the investigation for routine comment that the Elias Law Group, representing the DCCC and DSCC, sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding the paper not publish. Although the paper’s fact-checkers and legal department later cleared the piece before sending out a second round of requests for comment, the Times ultimately decided to kill the piece.
The piece was subsequently slated for publication at The Bulwark, where it underwent additional fact-checking, data verification, and legal review. When requests for comment were sent to the subjects of the investigation, lawyers representing the Progressive Turnout Project and Mothership Strategies likewise responded with legal letters demanding that the article not run. From there, publication was repeatedly delayed. The piece cleared successive rounds of legal review. When I asked for a committed publication date after months of delay, The Bulwark conditioned publication on my accepting an extensive rewrite prepared by its editors that, in my assessment, removed key empirical findings without explanation, introduced claims contradicted by the data and fact-checking record, and presented the subjects' legal defenses as my own conclusions. When I declined to publish under those terms, the piece was released back to me.
death to bourgeois media
seems like this link has a tracking tag on the end, might want to consider removing that
I'm gonna start a cash4gold type grift but for the democratic party. I'm an innovator.
if i'm reading this right, they're using 63% of the money they take in in to ask for more money?
Like they say, ya gotta spend money to beg for money
This is also how most non profits work
It's a big grift and you ain't in it!
Yes, but most of their fundraising is just sending emails to lists they've gathered over the years, most of those are people who donated to some Dem org or candidate in the past, so they don't even do a lot of work to get the email lists. They are mostly just funneling money to their own private companies for "outreach" or "fundraising".
I will never forgive Bernie for giving all these ghouls my number.
Spin up a shell PAC to ask for money. Get a bunch End2End/Stop2End messages. Spin up a new shell PAC to ask again. Repeat.
I never donated shit and they still spam me
whole country is just scams on scams lol, one day amerikkka won't even be able to do imperialism because scams took over the MIC
I mean, are we not there already?
The US still has hardware from the 1950s-1980s. They first need to burn through a little bit more than that until they can't do much of anything.
I mean, they’re still using the M2 machine gun which was invented during World War 1
This is because it is the shark of HMGs
TBF there is nothing wrong with the M2 and they made a fuckton of those during WW2.
https://xcancel.com/morris_que14/status/2089106534118605094
South Korea proposes talks to officially end war with North, per BBC
> US withdraws last aircraft carrier from East Asia
> Peace spontaneously breaks out
Does this mean that mandatory conscription can be lifted? Since it serves no purpose other than to give the US a standing army of colonized soldiers?
This is probably some political calculus to try to manipulate Trump on some level. The capitalist owners of South Korea need the constant threat of war to sustain their own legitimacy.
And then the Korean chuds can let go of the argument that gender roles are valid due to conscription.
A sunshine policy 2 would be nice, but the north will never give up their nukes. This gesture extends to where talks of denuclearization is unnecessary, and no further.
Lee Jae Myung suggested a "multi-layered security system" to avoid flare-ups along the countries' de-facto border, known as the demilitarised zone (DMZ), and offered to discuss practical ways of halting Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
yeah i don't know if this is going anywhere
Calling them nuclear ambitions at this point is some hilarious cope. Those are nuclear facts, man. Their first test was 20 fuckin years ago
"Im like North Korea, I no longer have nuclear ambitions, I have nuclear facts"
better watch your fuckin' step or you'll see nuclear acts
the Slightly Less Demilitarised Zone, next to the Demilitarised Zone?
Will they "establish peace" or is this just a ruse like the MOU? There are material contradictions in regards to the Korean Peninsula that cannot be resolved with a simple treaty and lipservice to the same failed frameworks.
The South cannot accept the nuclear weapons in the North. The North cannot accept weakening deterrence to the South. This is ignoring the historical element where the South materially benefitted from the genocide of the North.
The DPRK cannot accept this after having designated the south as the "most hostile state". So this is politicking and managing risk from the DPRK at a moment of weakness more than anything. Including politicking against the US by making moves to mend fences with the US enemy the DPRK despite Trump's attitude of "I don't care, I love those guys" occupied southern Korea knows that the US doesn't want to lose it as a vassal and wants hostility there against the DPRK.
At most with continued perseverance the DPRK might re-build a road on the border or two, open a thing or two and make some showy gestures but this isn't going to change the hostility and danger they feel from the US occupied south.
JDPON Don strikes again
I thought they already did that during Trump 1.
Lula vs Bolsonaro campaign begins
UNC STILL GOT IT
During a historic speech to 40,000 people at the launch of his presidential campaign, Lula makes a promise to the Brazilian people and explains why he will attempt a fourth term: "As long as I am alive, I will not let the right-wing return to power! And I’ll say more: I’ll say that whoever wants to help them can come. If Trump wants to come, let him come. If Milei wants to come, let him come. Whoever wants to come, come. I don’t want help from outside. I'm not afraid. The only help I want is the help of the Brazilian people so that we can maintain the democracy of this country.” he stated.
:::spoiler photograph taken of Lula after he was freed from prison (5.6 Mb) :::
EDIT: will this get loaded for everyone even before they expand the spoiler? I don't wanna fuck up the mega
It does get loaded
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.
Didnt load til i expanded the spoiler o7
US SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) is down another 5.3MMbbl. Remaining capacity (not all usable) is 293MMbbl.
Diesel prices are close to all time highs, with a ~4% gain, meanwhile crude oil gains "only" ~3%.
Hormuz might not be closed, but it definitely isn't open!
So the much ballyhooed shortages of oil that have been alleged to be on the edge of happening for months now are still not occurring and the reason seems to be that Iran's lockdown of Hormuz is much less effective than they'd like you to believe and that there is a constant supply of ships without transponders on transiting and bringing a lot of oil through. That plus possibly larger than disclosed reserves.
Covert mideast oil flows are keeping global prices in check - Fortune and Bloomberg
Middle Eastern oil producers are pressing ahead with shuttling large volumes of crude out of the Persian Gulf, helping keep a lid on prices and assuaging fears of an energy-driven inflation spike, even as the Iran war drags on.
The trade of ferrying oil through the Strait of Hormuz undetected to transfer the barrels onto tankers in the Gulf of Oman is running at full tilt, despite recent attacks on vessels, people with knowledge of the shipments said.
The incognito crossings of the world’s most vital energy chokepoint have become a major lifeline for global markets that were bracing for a much worse supply shock when the Iran war broke out. For producers in the region, the situation is far from normal, however, with ships subject to repeated hostility even though they have some military protection, the people said.
The shuttling has been ongoing for months, but tracking how much oil those “dark” ships are moving is a challenge for traders and analysts alike because vessels are protecting themselves by giving little clue about their locations. The volumes are running higher than market estimates of 4 million barrels a day, the people said, without specifying by how much. They spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.
Before the Iran war, about 20 million barrels a day crossed Hormuz, roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply. Last week, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that 9 million barrels a day crossed Hormuz over the previous seven days — a figure that surprised many traders and would be on the high end of estimated flows, at almost half of pre-war rates.
[...] The dark shuttle transits have combined with pipeline workarounds, stockpile releases and reductions in demand across the world to limit the economic hit from the war.
In addition to the UAE, barrels from Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait have all been ferried through Hormuz, according to vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, as well as Kpler and Vortexa data.
[...] People with knowledge of the UAE’s shipments said there was little indication of a slowdown, even after it reported more Iranian attacks on its ships in recent days.
[...] “It’s a dark trade,” said Pankaj Khanna, chief executive officer of Heidmar Maritime Holdings Corp. “It’s the only option right now as not all owners are willing to take the risk.”
‘Dark’ oil trade still flowing despite Hormuz disruption – Bloomberg (RT link)
::: spoiler My thoughts and analysis Personally I put this down as a massive L for Iran's "economic nuke". Because right now their only near term pressure point is the mid-term elections in the US and forcing high gas prices to scare Trump and Republicans into a deal for fear of losing congress or alternatively punishing the administration with a somewhat oppositional congress for the rest of his term. By failing to lock down the strait effectively, allowing this massive continuing oil flow it seems likely they've all but ensured prices will remain stable through election day meaning they've lost their window of opportunity to pressure Trump meanwhile US pressure will continue to slash at Iran's economy and the quality of life for their people via strong sanctions, shipping interdiction and blockades, etc. This increases pain for Iran, pressure domestically to accept a lesser deal and sets the stage for better conditions for the next color revolution attempt so time is not necessarily a loyal ally of Iran but something that has to be managed given their own pain points and wants.
This higher than expected supply would also explain the lack of panic. The banks and those others who matter have had this information for some time as have government officials. There was a window of panic before this system settled-in in defiance of Iran but now it's up and working. Long-term it will still increase prices but not enough to make the US or zionist entity budge IMO. If anything they'll move to diffuse this problem by having gulf vassals add additional pipeline capacity. Iran has been unwilling to escalate to total destructive bombing of oil extraction and refinery operations to shut down gulf operations that way probably due to a fear of retaliatory strikes, it being an escalation they want to keep in their pocket to tamp down the willingness of gulf states to attack them. So in that way Iran is being managed and its escalation kept in check by counter-escalatory threats.
Thus the problem is manageable for the west and more a burden on the average worker in the imperial core owing to higher prices than real economic pressure. Another telegraphed economic crash at this point wouldn't hurt the bourgeoisie and would in fact help transfer more wealth upwards, make the working class even more desperate and amenable to discipline and help consolidate AI behind a few key strong players. It would annoy Trump personally but he's term limited anyway and the fact is the resultant crimes of desperation would help push through a new 90s style police state expansion and really jump-start and bulldoze over opposition to things like Flock and other ALPRs private camera tracking and surveillance nets.
Iran is simply not achieving attrition of the global oil vessel fleet sufficient to scare the owners into not transiting under US military guidance and insurance. The economic risks of sitting on the oil and not transiting are seen as greater than that of risking transit. Iran simply isn't sinking vessels and not in any large numbers so there's a lack of deterrence and much celebrated drone strikes that put a hole here or there but don't threaten the vessel or cargo are not enough to deter. This was always going to be a problem if this situation dragged on. For the short-term of a few weeks, a couple months the economics say that it would pay to wait and not risk it believing that resolution was right around the corner, however as the closure stretches on, losses pile up, US pressure piles up, a resolution becomes hard to see, this becomes the new normal and incentives are added the economics increasingly say it's best to risk transit. And the longer this goes on the greater the incentive to risk ratio becomes in favor of defying Iran. That is short of reductions in the global or at least regionally held fleets of oil tankers that might threaten after-war capacity in a major way which might shift the calculus back.
Some of this shows the potential limits of Iran's degraded sensing capabilities over the strait as well given how few of these vessels are being attacked and how a lack of a proper navy further complicates things. Chinese satellites are good and well but not enough on their own to sense and stop much of this traffic apparently. That or Iran is holding their hand back for some reason which makes neither tactical nor strategic sense.
As I've said before we seem to be at a stalemate. Iran is immovable as is the US and zionist entity. None can compromise to the degree the others desire so the situation continues while the US tries to route around the damage and Iran scratches its head trying to think of ways to pressure the US that won't bring more massive attacks on it from gulf states by escalating against them too far and making them go for broke. Iran could break out of this doldrums by launching a massive new wave of attacks bringing pressure on the gulf vassals or the zionist entity directly, but will they? They've been building up their arsenal but they've also always shown themselves to be people after a deal not fighting a massive region-wide war. And the US could still play a card of a massive air/ground operation to seize nuclear materials and use a successful version of that to walk away after wiping their hands of the matter and declaring victory which could also disrupt this fragile state of in-action.
Also while one cannot rule out this being a psyop or misinfo at this point given the other indicators it would be rational to assume it is the case and they're telling the truth. :::
Iran is also allowing oil tankers to transit the strait through their designated routes. The strait isn't closed moreso than it is open to anyone who accepts Iranian sovereignty.
The oil supply is still fucked up from various missile campaigns, and Ansarallah is bludgeoning the Saudi entity with a much more effective blockade in the red sea, but Iran has quietly loosened the noose in pursuit of a rules based order that favours their regional ambitions. Not a surprise, nor a necessarily bad thing; patience is needed.
I call bullshit and it is in fact China balancing the markets.
That only begs the question of why China is assisting the US in doing its imperialism and avoiding the consequences of its actions. Especially since at this point there's no reason not to let the whole thing rip as it's clear Trump isn't going to bend the knee or make peace. So this is tantamount to saying China is in the US corner against Iran which I have trouble accepting given the implications. I could see China tapping its own reserves early on as a favor to curry some favor with the US with an eye to the US realizing its mistake in attacking Iran and pulling back while minimizing consequences for Trump to make that appealing but continuing to do so in the face of the perfidy and other actions of the US would be foolish.
China's just adhering to total consistency as a non-interfering country. They're operating to stabilise things, not just for themselves but for everyone else. They're demonstrating with total consistency that they can be viewed as a reliable trading partner and participant in international markets, not use it as a weapon.
It's annoying for internationalists but it's in-line with their non-interference and sovereignty policy, which they view as more important right now.
China released a ton of oil from their reserves. Guess China isn't doing nothing.
This all feels like cope to me. Even with the numbers cited in the article that's still half as much oil leaving as before the war. The SPR isn't just emptying for funsies, there is real pressure causing that to happen. The paper market not catching up until it's bad bad would not be surprising to me at all.
Agreed. We can watch the SPR dropping week over week I don't think it's a coincidence that they put this piece out the same week that it dropped below 300,000 barrels. Trying to manage the oil market collapsing is becoming a class-wide project
Crude oil prices are relatively low, but finished products (especially diesel) are behaving like oil was $150 and not $90. China cut demand for crude oil but now that finished products are shooting up in price, they might fully return to market because pushing up the price of crude oil is the lesser of two evils.
I was being a bit of a doomer about Iran accepting the MoU (knowing that the US won't implement it), but it worked out well for Iran because they obviously also believed that the US won't implement the MoU and they were able to prepare much better during the ceasefire. There is every reason to believe that the same thing is happening now. Also, there are signs that Iran is very slowly tightening up their control over the SoH. Cutting traffic now, with global reserves being much lower than at the start, would obviously create a lot more pressure.
Some LNG derived products are also higher priced or not available like 0W-20 and lower weight engine oils. Manufacturers reformulated the products to reduce LNG scarcity exposure
Clearly there's a lot of oil getting out of the gulf. No one here should be that surprised - look at how creative commodity markets have been at working around US/western sanctions of Russian oil. Commodities find a way, so to speak.
That said, I don't think this is as huge a loss for Iran as you are portraying. Ultimately they want oil to flow through the strait, while taking a cut for themselves. Cutting off the strait entirely is contrary to this goal. Their primary goal (imo) is to get the US military out of the gulf and pushed away as much as the Iranian missile range will allow. Debasification is separate from oil flows. Frankly, the less oil that goes through hormuz, the less important it is to US interests and the less incentive there is to have bases in the region.
Finally, most of the analysis I saw in March was saying that July-Aug would be the start of the real pinch. We are on the front end of that, especially after allowing for the short time when strait transits bounced back, the uncertainty associated with reserves, creative workarounds, and uncertainty associated with any individual analyst. If we go another 6 months of oil below $100 I'll agree that this strategy is more of a failure, but in the meantime I think inconclusive. Geopolitical change always takes time.
It doesn't matter that much as I said with regards to higher prices eventually as I outlined in my post about why a crash is fine for the bourgeoisie. As long as it happens after the midterms there's no pressure on this admin or the US in general to really change strategies even temporarily.
There's no serious evidence the US reserves will run out by August or even September and no pro-Iranian propagandists on twitter don't count. Demand decline after summer is a real thing even under normal circumstances and with some flow coming through (maybe up to half pre-war even) that stems the use of the reserves and preserves them for longer. I just don't think it will hit before the mid-terms as it would be a disaster not just for the Republicans but for support for the zionist entity which would hit the Democrats hard.
The moment of maximum pressure would be $8/gal gas for the US heading into the midterms, that would be a disaster for the US and the zionist entity and support for it. After the midterms they can just coast and fuck the workers with high gas prices while proclaiming it's Iran or environmental regulations (expect them to strip the hell out of those) that are causing these higher prices.
So I'm not sure what the point is. The US didn't crack over the OPEC embargo which was much worse back in the 70s over support of the zionist entity, they didn't crush all those campus protestors and create a renewed anti-zionist movement within even the right with their heavy-handed support of the entity to drop it now. Sure US loses some bases, mildly inconvenient and a definite Iranian win and demonstration of missile and drone power but strategically I don't see them being pushed out of the region entirely, nor congress bending the knee and repealing sanctions, nor the zionist entity rolling back its occupation of Lebanon by a single mile in response to this. So at best Iran gets some money while the US gets to hold its head high without a brutal and crushing visible loss and that flow of money could be challenged at any time if the US enforces sanctions on transfers of funds to Iran by gulf states.
The thing about control of the strait vs just bombing Saudi refineries into dust is that there's a good case to be made under international law that Iran has a right to charge these fees and to control that waterway. There's no case to be made under international law that they can just bomb the Saudis or anyone else for not letting them get a cut of their oil by routing it away from Iran's territory to avoid paying them. China and Russia would recognize and stand behind ratified Iranian control of the strait and fees for transit, they wouldn't stand behind them bombing extraction and refineries throughout the region because they're avoiding their tolls.
The news that Iran is preparing for a new wave of attacks unless the US actually implements the MoU is great news. Because if they fail to do that then this is a slow slide into irrelevancy while the US strings them along forever. We'll see how long those attacks last and whether they're performative or not or lead to more stringing along when they come I suppose but it's something positive at least and anything that hits the US and its dogs is good.
There's many other considerations such as a desire to spur creation of alternative capacity by raising oil prices enough to get other projects elsewhere in the world under way, places much more safely under US empire control so this continuing with higher prices may not even bother some of these planners so much as suit them for their longer term designs. They do keep talking of short-term pain for long-term gain. The US may not be able to rebuild a WW2 size arms industry no matter how much money they throw at it but fossil fuels exploration, exploitation, etc is very much actively opening and tapping new sources and if they can convince those companies that the new reality is limited, unstable transit, fees to Iran, etc through Hormuz they may be able to get them to invest the thinking may go and that's not unreasonable.
There is really no pressure for them to change strategies outside of the public uncertainty both at home and abroad. We do not live in a world driven by materialism, we live in a world of idealism that only responds to materialist concerns when the crisis occurs We are not at the point of materialist crisis, and it is uncertain if it will reach a point of materialist crisis where the elite have to act before the proletariat do. And the proletariate are at a historic point of disorganization, so I expect extremely little from them. However, that doesn't mean that these entities will not act irrationally out of purely ideological motivations.
Due to this, I doubt that will be the case that they will not change strategies, as they already have had to change strategies, publicly and repeatedly, and it is clear that nobody, even those supposedly in charge, really knows what the endgame looks like here.
What matters more than anything is that Iran has been able to make the U.S. look extremely incompetent on the world stage, and has not allowed them secure any of their actual stated objectives, outside of 'kill alot of people'. This denial alone has been enough to scare the piss out of the elites, and sometimes that is enough to be thankful for. It certainly punctures the myth of American omnipotence and invincibility.
If they decide, irrationally, that they must demonstrate complete dominance and pursue further military action, such as invasion, it will likely only serve to place more egg on their face.
"All things are chaos under heaven. The situation is excellent."
It should've been July, something is off.
It's always depended on what reserves are actually at and how both producers and consumers (on the industrial side) reacted. We are solidly in the range of uncertainty. Gas is still +40-50% compared to the beginning of the year.
They could be paying the iranians under the table; Trump would then refuse to scuttle the ships because otherwise, our groceries are going to jump by 400%
Maybe but this can only go on for so long before it leaks or some other problem comes up if true. That and Trump's threats to bomb Oman over striking a deal on transit fees with Iran makes it feel like the US doesn't really care or at least refuses to let this ever be above-board if it's the case things are being done under the table by the gulf states.
I think it's reasonable to think it's possible, and that some people are running the blockade. I'm not sure I would concede that it's rational to assume western sources are just telling the truth.
Do we trust these sources
They've been building up their arsenal but they've also always shown themselves to be people after a deal not fighting a massive region-wide war.
I haven't seen them as deal-seeking, they have left room for the US to de-escalate but they have been clear about their red lines and have continually attacked US proxies in the region and continue to strike vessels attempting to transit. The US' ability to carry out strikes on Iran has been severely degraded, if nothing else changes this is a win for Iran right now, the west might be sneaking tankers but there's no way it's close to pre-war levels. Strategic reserves of oil in the US continue to go down. I don't believe the US is immovable in the region, they can't continue this posture indefinitely and their bases are still vulnerable to missiles, what I see from Iran is a long-term strategy that is advantageous over the west. They recently had some promotions and role changes within their security council and haven't had much time to show what their continuing strategy might be as well.
This doesn't make sense to me. As we've seen capitalism jumps at any chance to raise prices and any tiny change is enough to fuck with it. Iran has declared that there will no longer be free passage. That alone should be enough to fuck with prices to a bad point given how razor thin the markets have been on collapse. You factor in the AI bubble and other things it seems like a recipe for a disaster. Even with a few ships going through.
They jump to raise consumer prices to scam consumers. But the very economic structure of wider society is also a scam, and that's what is under threat if they hike prices too much.
(doesn't know shit about anything) and the Japanese bond market!
oh I don't know anything either. I'm just putting down my thought process, which could be very flawed.
https://xcancel.com/sethharpesq/status/2088989786417557825
More pictures from aboard the moldy old USS George Washington, which recently underwent an incredibly expensive “complex overhaul” that took SIX YEARS to finish. Our navy is like this because we only have ONE shipyard capable of refueling and repairing a nuclear aircraft carrier. Meanwhile, a single Chinese shipyard in ONE YEAR (2024) produced more ships than the entire American shipbuilding industry has produced since World War II.
Oh hey that's why they used to call insulators "moldies"
That canvas jacket is attached with wheat paste! Possibly asbestos under there too
Asbestos Mold. Wow.
Can't get rid of it, can't keep it.
Depending on exactly when it was installed it may just be the fittings (bends, valves, pumps)
How can the valves handle be broken in such a way ? Using a tool because it was stuck ?
Or severe corrosion of some sort.
remember that artillery shell plant which didn't make any shells? well, it still hasn't made any! https://archive.ph/8l0KO
Fiasco in the Factory: Taxpayers Funded a $533 Million Artillery Plant That Made Nothing
- Ready, Fire, Aim: In a rushed process exempted from normal rules, the Army hired General Dynamics, which brought on a Turkish subcontractor with little vetting, to make artillery shells.
- Money for Nothing: Despite being paid $533 million, General Dynamics did not produce a single usable shell at its new factory — and has not been held publicly accountable.
- Wages of Failure: Since the Army halted two production lines at the factory, the General Dynamics unit responsible for the debacle has received contract awards totaling $2.5 billion.
::: spoiler more
A robot was on fire. Again. It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week. Only weeks earlier, defense officials and executives had touted the factory’s innovative new machinery, imported from Turkey, at a gala opening ceremony. But employees were already used to spectacular mishaps, fiery and otherwise. “After the second, third, fourth time, it just became almost normal,” one former worker said. “It got to the point where I was not surprised by anything that happened there.” Instead of producing shells in an efficient and streamlined fashion, the pricey machines kept failing in bizarre ways. The robot arms would swing out of control, smashing into carefully calibrated equipment, and sometimes they would unexpectedly drop hunks of steel 5 feet down to the floor. The factory’s signature device, meant to precisely stretch the steel for the artillery shells, instead often cracked it beyond repair. Then there were the giant press machines, which required regular pounding with a sledgehammer to function properly but still botched the shaping of nearly every shell. “We really didn’t have any standardized practice,” said Quantel White, a former employee. “It was just a bunch of guys taking turns going at the machine with a sledgehammer every night.” To workers, even the factory buildings themselves came to feel doomed, with acrid smoke hanging in 100-degree heat over foundations seemingly sinking into the earth.
The situation never improved. The U.S. Army, which funded the factory, ordered work halted on two of its three production lines in August 2025. By then, General Dynamics had blown eight deadlines. Work on the third production line continued, but the facility never produced a single usable shell, according to a report from the Department of Defense’s inspector general in July. The fiasco has cost American taxpayers $533 million, according to the Army. But the Army has not held General Dynamics or a key Turkish subcontractor — which provided the factory’s much-hyped but little-proven equipment — publicly accountable for the failures. Nor has it made General Dynamics pay a penny back. Just the opposite: General Dynamics, one of the world’s largest defense companies, has been showered with new contracts, continuing its track record as one of the greatest beneficiaries of Pentagon spending. The company is still in charge of the factory. It recently announced that it will fix things there by bringing in another much-hyped but little-proven technology. “It’s an absolute disaster,” said one former official in an Army office supervising the project. “The Army should’ve gone after recovering money from General Dynamics,” added the official, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity. Publicly, the Army has been tight-lipped about what, exactly, went wrong at the factory, located in a sprawling suburb called Mesquite. The inspector general report described the failure but offered few specifics. It didn’t name the companies involved, much less any of the individuals responsible. The report’s recommendations were tepid: The Army should determine whether the contract was “appropriately issued,” how “the money was spent” and whether it can recoup any of it. It should also “identify and implement a solution” for producing more artillery. Army officials deflected blame, telling the inspector general that they didn’t do anything wrong.
In a detailed statement to ProPublica, the Army said it will recover funding for the project by getting unspecified discounts from General Dynamics on production orders.
holy shit they're literally getting store credit
“The Army is exercising rigorous oversight to ensure every dollar invested delivers capability to the warfighter,” the statement read. “Where vendors fail to meet contract specifications, as seen at the Mesquite facility, we are evaluating contract performance, seeking recoupment of funds, and pivoting resources.”
here's how contract performance ought to be evaluated:
As for General Dynamics, it has given no public explanation whatsoever. The company has said that it “met or exceeded requirements,” according to the inspector general report. General Dynamics declined an interview request from ProPublica. Company spokesperson Jeff Davis said ProPublica’s reporting “fundamentally mischaracterizes the circumstances and falsely impugns our record of employee safety and truthfulness with our customer.” He continued: “An article based on this foundation would be a materially false and misleading hit piece.” Davis did not respond to ProPublica’s request that he specify the alleged errors.
ProPublica reconstructed how the project went awry through interviews with 36 current and former employees of General Dynamics, the Army, the Pentagon and the White House. ProPublica also reviewed internal company documents as well as photographs and videos taken inside the factory. Those involved described a project that was rushed and ill considered from the start. Congress paved the way, removing government contracting guardrails — meant to ensure taxpayer money isn’t wasted — so that Ukraine-related defense projects could be funded quickly. The Army took advantage, handing General Dynamics lucrative no-bid awards without knowing whether the machines it planned to use could perform the desired work. The Army’s due diligence was inadequate, four former Army and General Dynamics officials told ProPublica. Compared to the multibillion-dollar budgets of other DOD projects, the financial cost of the Texas debacle is small. But the lack of consequences for the companies involved, in the view of defense-spending critics, is symptomatic of a larger problem: a deep-rooted culture at the Pentagon and in Congress in which expensive failures lead only to more spending. Such critics fear that extreme cases like this one could become more common if the Trump administration succeeds in boosting the defense budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. The administration is also seeking tens of billions of dollars for its war against Iran and pressuring defense companies to quickly ramp up weapons production. “Too often the contractors have no accountability for their mistakes,” defense budget researcher William Hartung said. The Texas failure, he said, “is a foreshadow of what’s to come if the Trump administration gets the budget it asked for.”
The Pitch
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 felt like an emergency to the Biden administration. For General Dynamics, it was an opportunity. And Firat Gezen was ready with a pitch. In six years running General Dynamics’ Ordnance and Tactical Systems business, Gezen had earned a reputation as a deft strategist and salesman. At 50, he wasn’t an engineer, and he had no experience running factories. He had spent decades working on the financial side of the weapons business. With a ready smile and a delivery as smooth as his perfectly bald head, he knew how to woo corporate leaders and Pentagon arms buyers alike. Gezen was also shrewd. In 2020, after the Army sought to diversify its artillery supplier base by contracting with a small Pennsylvania company, Gezen swooped in and bought that company. That allowed General Dynamics to maintain its stranglehold over the production of metal bodies for the standard American artillery shell, referred to by its caliber: 155 mm. “Firat throws his arm around you and talks to you nicely,” one former Army official said. “But he’s got, like, five things that he’s the sole provider of, and it’s exclusive. He’s got you locked up forever.”
:::
cont'd in response, 1/4
Have they tried giving them more money? Maybe that would help?
tbf taking money from the military and not giving them anything in return is pretty good.
The MIC is morally neutral to work for because they don't actually make any weapons! Another win for liberalism
::: spoiler more
That put General Dynamics in an ideal position. Russia and Ukraine were firing thousands of shells back and forth each day. The United States was a key supplier to Ukraine, but decades of disinvestment had left the U.S. artillery industry emaciated. In March 2022, Congress passed the first in a series of bills allocating billions of dollars for Ukraine-related causes, including boosting artillery production. The next month, President Joe Biden pledged to send shells to Ukraine, and he wanted to move fast. But first someone had to make them. The 155 mm shell has been a military workhorse for a century, owing to its simple, lethal power. Packed with TNT, the 33-inch cylinder can travel 10 miles when shot out of the barrel of a howitzer and send fragments flying hundreds of feet upon impact. But decades of asymmetric warfare in the Middle East, in which the United States relied largely on drones and bombs, had led some to believe the days of artillery battles were waning. By 2022, General Dynamics was the only producer of 155 mm metal shell bodies in the country, mainly in a century-old facility in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Given that, the company was an obvious candidate to meet the sudden new demand. General Dynamics could simply replicate Scranton’s traditional manufacturing method, which dated back to the time of the Korean War. But in meetings with Pentagon officials in the fall of 2022, Gezen proposed an alternative: What if the Army funded a state-of-the-art production line that used a promising new technique? Central to this proposal was a virtual unknown in the world of American defense: Repkon. The company had been operating in its home country of Turkey for decades, providing “turnkey production facilities in the metal forming industry.” (Coincidentally, Gezen himself was born to Turkish parents in the United States.)
But Repkon had never received a Pentagon contract, and certainly not for its signature metalworking process called “flow-forming.” Whereas the Scranton method mainly involves molding ultrahot steel in giant forging presses, Repkon added a step in which a fast-spinning machine squeezes and rolls out the metal like clay on a potter’s wheel. The advantage, Gezen told defense officials, is that the same equipment could produce shells of various calibers. Most important, Repkon had a production line already available, meaning General Dynamics could start making shells faster than if it had to procure traditional equipment piece by piece. Warning signs abounded. Army officials learned that the production line that Repkon wanted to sell had been designed to produce an older, simpler model of 155 mm shells, which was made with different steel. It wasn’t clear that the Turkish equipment could even work with the steel used to make the newer 155 mm model, as the equipment had never actually produced it, according to four former General Dynamics and Army officials. Repkon said other countries were using the machines to produce the older model. But the Army and General Dynamics could not inspect those active production lines, Repkon told them, citing customer privacy. The Army could have balked at all of this and insisted on learning more about the capacity of the Repkon machines to perform the desired work. But learning more would’ve taken time, and time seemed in short supply. “There was incredible pressure to go fast,” a former Army official said. Everybody moved forward. In November 2022, the Army raced to give General Dynamics the first in a series of contract awards for the project that would ultimately be worth nearly $600 million if carried to completion. The next month, Congress granted the DOD extraordinary powers to award money for Ukraine-related causes without the usual contracting safeguards, dropping competitive bidding requirements and restrictions on so-called undefinitized contracting actions. UCAs allow a company to begin work even before finalizing the terms of its contract with the government. One defense executive compared them to “building the airplane as you’re flying it.”
The Army made the most of its expanded powers, awarding General Dynamics a number of UCAs without considering alternate proposals in a competitive bidding process. (The Army told ProPublica it selected the company because of its unique artillery production experience.) In fact, the Army was so enamored with the proposal that it decided to order even more than Gezen had pitched. Instead of contracting for one Repkon production line, the Army signed up to buy three. Without knowing whether any of them would work. Gezen had never overseen a project this ambitious. Until then, he had mainly presided over smaller expansions of existing factories that used traditional methods. But he was optimistic it would work. “He’s extremely aggressive, willing to take risks,” one former colleague said. Some of the Army’s scrutiny of the proposal occurred only after it began awarding contracts for it. The service and General Dynamics sent staffers to Turkey to inspect Repkon’s machinery, but they never inspected a full production line in action and there weren’t enough experts who could spot potential defects in the equipment, four former General Dynamics and Army officials said. Crucially, before greenlighting the deal, the Army did not require General Dynamics to demonstrate that it could use the Repkon equipment to complete the entire production process and make shells that met the Army’s specifications. (The Army told ProPublica that “formal testing could not occur prior to full machinery installation.”)
If the typical contracting safeguards had been in place, perhaps everything that followed could have been prevented. If the Pentagon had been forced to open the project to competitive bidding, it would have had to consider other proposals in a painstaking review process. If restrictions on UCAs had been in effect, the Pentagon would have had to slow down and finalize the terms of the deal before allowing it to proceed, which might have surfaced its fatal flaws. But one man’s due diligence is another man’s red tape. Soon, Repkon’s flow-forming machines were sailing across the Atlantic, heading eventually for Mesquite.
“This Is Actually Hell”
On May 29, 2024, the mood in Mesquite was triumphant. After two short years of planning, the factory was opening, and defense officials and executives gathered there to celebrate. “Our nation’s defense relies not only on our soldiers and other servicemembers in uniform but on production facilities like this one,” then-Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told seated dignitaries. She stood at a podium branded with the General Dynamics logo, with two howitzers posed behind her. She thanked the company’s CEO, Phebe Novakovic, and Gezen by name. “It’s a pleasure to highlight the fantastic work you all have done,” she said. But everything was not as fantastic as it appeared. Artillery shells displayed around the plant that day had been shipped in from elsewhere, three former workers told ProPublica. A worker picked one up and was startled to discover it was fake — seemingly made of plastic.
potemkin artillery shell
General Dynamics had already failed to perform a scheduled first article test, meant to demonstrate the facility could produce shells that met the Army’s specifications. The facility was supposed to start cranking out shells soon, but machines were barely functioning. Soon problems seemed to explode out of every corner, according to interviews with 12 former factory workers. For one thing, the flaming robot arms also kept smashing into things. They slammed into computer numerical control machines, breaking their windows and bending their doors. They knocked over shells. They bashed into safety fences. Workers talked about the arms going “rogue” and began calling one of them “Johnny 5” after a sentient military robot from a 1980s movie.
shoulda placated the machine spirits
Even simple equipment failed with slapstick regularity, six workers said. Conveyor belts broke down. Automated carts got lost. Safety gates meant to shut down machines when workers approached did not shut down machines when workers approached. A pipe exploded, spraying water up to the ceiling. Parts on Repkon machines deformed, leading a worker to discover that they were made with Chinese steel, possibly in violation of federal regulations. (The Army said it has no evidence of such violations.) Smoke hung in the air; it rolled off the press machines when robots sprayed them with lubricant. Workers could feel the smoke in their lungs. When they blew their noses after shifts, their mucus was black. A worker complained to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration about a “respirable hazard” at the factory, according to an OSHA record and spokesperson. The agency opened an investigation in October 2024, and an inspector visited the facility. The smoke-spewing press machines were scheduled to be operating on the day of the visit, but for some reason they weren’t running during the inspection, according to four former workers. OSHA issued no penalties, the agency told ProPublica. Staffers started to think it wasn’t just Repkon’s faulty equipment to blame for problems at the factory — it was General Dynamics’ management, too.
:::
cont'd in response, 2/4
the flaming robot arms also kept smashing into things. They slammed into computer numerical control machines
The tech bros were right, AI finally has become sentient and is breaking out of its chains. Breaking free from out controls. Look, it's on fire!
::: spoiler more
The plant could reach Sahara Desert temperatures when the furnaces or presses were on. “This is actually hell,” one worker thought to himself. It was hotter still inside cabinets containing drives that controlled critical machines, where it was regularly 140 degrees, two former workers told ProPublica. An outside inspector warned in an email reviewed by ProPublica that, at that temperature, “you would not only have drives failing but also human lives failing.” Every day seemed to bring more of the same: another machine broken, another frantic effort to repair it, another batch of misshapen shells tossed into the discard pile. As 2024 became 2025, little seemed to get better. With so few shells passing inspection stations along the production line, many workers had nothing to do. A cat-and-mouse game ensued. Bored staffers spent endless hours gazing at their phones, leading supervisors to restrict phone use. So workers began bringing crossword books. Managers nixed those. Some workers were seen sleeping, so supervisors took away chairs. “We sat around twiddling our thumbs, trying to find work, trying to figure out what was going on,” said Natashia Passmore, a former production technician in the plant. “It was a waste of government money, and it was a waste of our time.”
The Dumpster Fire
Tension rose between the Americans hired by General Dynamics and Turkish workers sent over by Repkon. The Repkon team was there to install the equipment, but it seemed equally flummoxed by the problems. General Dynamics workers found them evasive. They would give curt responses to questions in English but then be seen holding long, animated conversations in Turkish outside during frequent smoking breaks. A carelessly discarded cigarette butt sparked a real-life dumpster fire, three former workers said. Repkon was especially secretive about the flow-forming machines, refusing to answer most questions about their operations. General Dynamics workers could tell when Repkon was testing one of them, because they would find metal shards scattered on the floor around it later. The shards looked like alligator teeth. “Oh, the tooth fairy was here,” one worker would think to himself. Paranoia set in. Repkon refused to share passwords needed to control important equipment, according to five former General Dynamics employees. Sometimes workers would be startled by the sight of a machine moving by itself and realize it was being controlled by someone in Turkey. Spooked, General Dynamics workers tore out hardware to cut off remote access to the machines, two former workers said.
Rumors swirled among the Americans that the Turks were purposefully sabotaging machinery — or perhaps even engaged in some convoluted form of espionage. “It was astonishing how little progress we would make, month after month, year after year,” one former General Dynamics worker said. “People started speculating, ‘I wonder if they’re spying on us.’” General Dynamics assigned someone to shadow the Repkon workers in the factory, two former staffers said. (The Army said it has no evidence of sabotage or spying.) Even the buildings themselves — a trio of vast, anonymous boxes tucked into the crook of two freeways — were plagued with problems. Walls cracked, and daylight became visible around window frames. Doors began dragging on concrete floors. When it rained, water would flood in — “like a tsunami,” one former worker said. The foundations appeared to be shifting or sinking, six former employees said. It was as if the whole dysfunctional factory — its fires and smoke, its idle workers and haywire machines — was being slowly sucked down into the earth. Faced with the kaleidoscopic array of problems, the response from General Dynamics managers always seemed to be to plow forward. “Every single time they opened their mouths, it was: ‘We need to get into production,’” one former worker said. “Production is the only thing that mattered.”
“Nobody Wins”
As the situation at the factory deteriorated, General Dynamics and the Army told a very different story to the public. In April 2024, General Dynamics CEO Novakovic told investors: “In the U.S., we are rapidly increasing ammunition production with the opening of our Texas facility.” General Dynamics failed to conduct a scheduled first article test in Mesquite that same month. That July, two months after the opening ceremony, Novakovic told investors that “the first line is running and producing as we anticipated.” In fact, the first line was not producing any usable shells, six former plant workers told ProPublica.
whenever you read statements by the Western MIC about how they're totally scaling up production, remember that this is the kind of looney tunes shit actually happening in the background
In September Doug Bush, then the Army’s acquisition czar and a key figure overseeing the project, said “there have been no major delays” to the Army’s goal of producing 100,000 artillery shells each month — a goal for which the Mesquite factory was critical. “Any delays you’ve had have been measured in, I would call them weeks, not months, certainly not years,” Bush told reporters. He downplayed the problems, describing them as merely a matter of adjusting a machine “so that it puts out shells just so, versus a little bit off.”
~~dont siege Leningrad, take it immediately~~ don't make the shells wrong, just make them right
The next day, a laborer in Mesquite photographed the work of a machine meant to begin giving the shells perfectly smooth noses; it had instead mangled the metal into something that resembled the swirl of soft-serve ice cream. Also in September, Secretary Wormuth touted the Army’s artillery ramp-up at a conference, saying, “part of what’s enabling that are things like the brand-new plant that we opened up in Mesquite.” One month later, an Army contracting officer sent General Dynamics a letter of concern about its performance at the facility. The company missed the Army’s deadline for completing the first production line one month after that. (Wormuth declined to comment.) Despite it all, Gezen remained optimistic through the fall of 2024. The issues in Mesquite were mere delays, he thought, and there were plans in place to fix them, according to a person familiar with his thinking. “If Firat’s guilty of something, it’s not wanting to see the truth in the matter,” a former colleague said. He “has a tendency to not want to listen to bad news.” General Dynamics announced Gezen’s retirement in January 2025. Some industry insiders believe he was pushed out in part over Mesquite. (Gezen denied that but declined to sit for an on-the-record interview.) The split screen of blown deadlines and rosy public comments continued into the second administration of President Donald Trump. In April 2025, General Dynamics missed the completion date for the second production line. That same month, Novakovic told investors, once again: “We are rapidly increasing munitions capacity and production with the opening of our projectile facility in Texas.” The company missed another first article test two months later.
As the failures mounted, a sinking feeling took hold in Army offices. The service assembled a team to assess the situation in the factory, which produced a report that gave little confidence the problems could be fixed. Finally, in June 2025, the Army told General Dynamics it was considering terminating the contract awards for the plant, a defense trade publication reported at the time. Two months later, the service ordered work halted on two of the factory’s three production lines. But the Army did not unilaterally terminate the contract awards. “A termination for default would’ve taken years through the legal system, because General Dynamics wasn’t going to accept that,” a former Army official told ProPublica. “Nobody wins except the lawyers.”
once again, we already know how to solve this kind of problem:
This would not be the last act of generosity from the Trump administration to General Dynamics. In December 2025, according to the inspector general’s report, the government paid the company $26.3 million in “progress payments” for the second and third production lines in Mesquite, although neither line had ever produced a usable shell.
A Novel Solution
Two months ago, General Dynamics made an announcement that conjured a sense of déjà vu. To fix the problems at the factory, the company would team up with yet another unheard-of partner promising technological innovation. The solution this time? Artificial intelligence.
HAHAHAHHh
A news release from General Dynamics and the new company, Deterrence, was filled with techno-business jargon. “AI-enabled capabilities” and “intelligence and connectivity” would be added at Mesquite and other General Dynamics factories, the companies wrote. “AI transforms production facilities into strategic assets,” Deterrence’s CEO said in the release. “We’re building autonomous manufacturing systems that learn, adapt, and scale in real time.” These pronouncements have baffled former Mesquite workers. “What are they talking about? There’s nothing to learn or adapt or scale,” one said. “It’s all broken.”
:::
cont'd in response, 3/4
The plant could reach Sahara Desert temperatures when the furnaces or presses were on. “This is actually hell,” one worker thought to himself. It was hotter still inside cabinets containing drives that controlled critical machines, where it was regularly 140 degrees, two former workers told ProPublica. An outside inspector warned in an email reviewed by ProPublica that, at that temperature, “you would not only have drives failing but also human lives failing.”
Imagine not understanding that your factory needs ventilation or else the outside of the furnace very quickly becomes almost as hot as the inside of the furnace.
Bored staffers spent endless hours gazing at their phones, leading supervisors to restrict phone use. So workers began bringing crossword books. Managers nixed those. Some workers were seen sleeping, so supervisors took away chairs. “We sat around twiddling our thumbs, trying to find work, trying to figure out what was going on,” said Natashia Passmore, a former production technician in the plant. “It was a waste of government money, and it was a waste of our time.”
And I've worked in jobs like this before, always awful when you're not able to work due to the boss's incompetence, but they also won't let you just sit down and try to pass the mind numbing time on your shift faster. Just wanting to punish the workers as much as possible and maximise their suffering.
Boss paid for 8 hours of alienation and they're damn sure going to get their money's worth, even without any labor!
::: spoiler more
General Dynamics is doing this even as it replaces most of the Repkon equipment with traditional machines like those used in Scranton. How AI will wrest miracles from decades-old technology is unclear. But General Dynamics told investors it expects to be in production next year, and the Army told the inspector general that’ll amount to 20,000 shells a month. Compared with Repkon, Deterrence is perhaps an even less conventional choice. Deterrence was established just three years ago and has never received a DOD contract. Its website gives no indication it has ever helped to manufacture anything. Its three founders have no prior defense experience. One of them worked at Tesla; the other two created a startup that enabled people to lock and unlock buildings with smartphones.
I am reaching levels of jokerification I previously thought impossible
Deterrence did not respond to a request for comment. General Dynamics also pledged to put $200 million into the project. That’s a small sum for a company that generated more than $50 billion in revenue last year and gave CEO Novakovic a compensation package worth more than $25 million. (Meanwhile, the company furloughed or laid off most of the Mesquite workers.) The Army says it won’t spend any more money on the project, but it has hardly blackballed General Dynamics. Since the Army shut down work on two production lines in Mesquite one year ago, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems has received contract awards totaling $2.5 billion, the Army told ProPublica. (The service said this was for “distinct production lines and critical national defense requirements” unrelated to Mesquite.)
Repkon’s American offshoot is now at work setting up a TNT factory after receiving a no-bid contract from the Army worth $435 million. TNT is the primary explosive fill in 155 mm shells. Repkon Turkey’s CEO co-founded the American company, which was originally named Repkon USA. In March, it changed its name to Paligen Technologies. Some interpreted this as an effort to create distance from the Mesquite disaster. Paligen told ProPublica that it and Repkon are “different and wholly separate companies.” Repkon Turkey did not respond to requests for comment. The one thing that key decision-makers appear to agree on is that they are absolutely not to blame. Gezen, the former General Dynamics executive, told ProPublica that the company and the Army did nothing wrong. In a brief conversation at his apartment door in a ritzy section of Washington, D.C., in May, Gezen maintained his sunny optimism. The Repkon equipment was a good option, and it may still be a good option, he said, holding an iced coffee in one hand and restraining a large dog with his other. In any case, he added, “it was the fastest option available.” Bush, the Army’s former acquisition chief who had assured reporters there were “no major delays” to increasing artillery production, also declined to be interviewed. In a terse conversation in May, peering out from his half-closed front door in Northern Virginia, he told ProPublica: “All of this was done through appropriate procedures.”
well, as long it was done through the appropriate procedu—
Others who were involved, speaking on the condition of anonymity, engaged in mutual finger-pointing: The White House demanded too much too fast, Repkon and General Dynamics overpromised, the Army didn’t perform due diligence and Congress underwrote the whole thing. The United States still is not close to producing the promised 100,000 shells per month, a former Army official told ProPublica in June, although other investments to increase 155 mm production have turned out better. Ukraine still needs those shells, the official said, but attention has once again shifted. In the Middle East, it’s other munitions that the Trump administration has rapidly burned through during its war with Iran. Trump officials are now calling for ramping up production in those areas — and fast. “Conventional ammo is back on the back burner,” the official said. “Everything now is about interceptors, missiles.” General Dynamics makes components for those too.
no high-end munitions, no low-end munitions, no food on the carriers...
:::
4/4
Said it before, I'll say it again.
A reasonable society would execute these pathetic war profiteers as a measure of self-defense and warning to others.
Taking that much money to produce nothing in the war effort?? What is the exact difference between them, and an enemy bombing raid which destroyed the factories?
That said, it happening in America is just funny.
A weapons factory sinking into the earth and catching on fire as the workers fall into paranoia of each other.
Literal hell descending on Americans and they still can't take a hint.
You say working in a defense contractor makes me an imperialist lapdog with the blood of innocents, yet my defense contractor produces nothing of value to the war machine. Feeling stupid yet, tankie?
https://archive.ph/zfop7
USS Benfold Was Stalled in the South China Sea for Four Days After Engineering Casualty
Guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG-65) spent four days in the South China Sea without power after an engineering failure, USNI News has learned.
::: spoiler more
Benfold suffered the engineering casualty resulting in a loss of power last month, Cmdr. Matthew Comer, spokesperson with U.S. 7th Fleet, told USNI News in a statement. “On July 24, 2026, while conducting routine operations in the Indo-Pacific, Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65) reported an engineering casualty involving its generators, causing a loss of power,” reads the statement. “There were no injuries to the crew, who demonstrated resilience, grit, professionalism and unwavering steadiness in their response.” The loss of power meant sailors were without galley services, toilets and air conditioning. Potable water was also affected, Comer said. He did not respond to a question about how sailors handled waste.
The George Washington Carrier Strike Group supported the destroyer, according to 7th Fleet. USS Robert Smalls (CG-62), the cruiser attached to the George Washington Carrier Strike Group, helped provide meals for the crew, Comer said. Contractor tugboats towed Benfold to Subic Bay where it was met by personnel from the Ship Repair Facility – Japan Regional Maintenance Center on July 28, with crew receiving contracted lodging off the ship the next day. Power was restored on July 30, Comer said. All repairs were completed by Aug. 7 when the ship completed a berth shift for fuel. The destroyer left Subic Bay on Aug. 8. Benfold, which had been sailing with the George Washington Carrier Strike Group, pulled into Yokosuka, Japan, on Thursday, according to ship spotters. It did not transit the Malacca Strait with the other ships of the GW CSG, which are likely heading toward the Middle East. The ship is currently in port in Yokosuka, Comer said. The Navy is investigating the cause of the engineering failure. :::
The Benfold's got no power? So it's a Brick, and it's drowning slowly?
Newsmega-heads: this is what we mean when we say it's important to Do The Reading.
I would have also accepted a reference to Missing the War
https://tenor.com/en-CA/view/drum-roll-fill-monkey-eyeroll-gif-13613975
Venezuelan gold will be transferred from the Bank of England to the US Treasury Department, with the Venezuelan government losing sovereignty over its gold held in London. Approximately 31 tons of Venezuelan gold will be delivered to the US. - El Nacional
Looks like the Delcy government negotiated it and will eventually get to use it towards earthquake recovery.
Earthquake recovery that is conveniently provided by payments of gold to American subcontractors !!!
Hello again to you all, people of the News Mega, I am once again writing to you about the latest news from the messy heart of the Balkans 🇷🇸. This time we have three new stories that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere that I'd like to share with you:
The first one concerns Banderastan. The President of Ukraine, Zelenskyyyy, visited Serbia just hours after I finished writing my last post. There was a lot of talk about what thez would be talking about, with a Ge*man newspaper mentioning ammunition transfers to Ukraine and a drone factory. The pathetic man, ultimately, spoke with Serbia's president Vučić about checks notes eurointegration. The whole thing would have been extremely uneventful had it not been for a German journalist asking the comedian in the heart of Russophile Serbia: “What can we Europeans do so that you can kill more Russians?“. And if that wasn't enough of an incident for your tastes, Zelenskyyy also mentioned that Ukraine will continue to not recognize Kosovo as an independent country, sparking outrage in the south of Serbia and leading to a very butthurt Politico article. As always, a situation can have two different outcomes depending on the level that your country obeys the West.
For the second story we go back to Kosovo. More awful stuff has been happening regarding this disputed region again. Serbia's president decided to threaten the secessionist state with a complete rerouting of its main river as a reaction for the destruction of Serb property by the artificial lake created on that river. As stated in the article:
The importance of Gazivode [the lake] is best shown by a study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), conducted in 2021 for the US Department of Energy. It states that water from Gazivode provides about a third of drinking water in Kosovo, while more than 97 percent of electricity production depends on water from this system.
Obviously, there's no way anything like this can happen and is a crazy threat that will not be allowed by any of the countries guaranteeing the independence of the breakaway region, but it is a good representation of the way that the dynamic of the two works since the overthrow of Milošević. Kosovo terrorizes Serbs -> Empty threats by Serbia -> More terror against Serbs etc.
Finally, on the topic of more terror, a Serb man was, according to him, brutally beaten by members of "the Kosovo Police" near his home. He alleges that the cops came to his house and tied him to a tree and beat him with a garden hose (NSFW photos included in the link). Have incidents like this in mind next time you see some idiot posting somewhere how Yugoslavia broke up because of a man trying to anally satisfy himself and that the Serbs in the 80s were just paranoid. Sporadic violence directed against Serbs never stopped in Kosovo and will continue until conditions down there seriously change.
“What can we Europeans do so that you can kill more Russians?“
i thought that was hyperbole, those were the actual words...
What can we Europeans do so that you can kill more Russians?“.
I thought you were joking, yikes, I shouldnt be this surprised
A Vietnam Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner with 250 passengers botched its takeoff from München airport - it's a great airport, be sure to try their pretzels! - and was presumably just milliseconds away from turning into a giant fireball.
Hair-raising Youtube short from inside the plane: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c29ZyxxBP-U
Plane dumped fuel, did a couple of low fly-bys and safely returned to the airport. Theories and speculation range from wrong takeoff input settings to some kind of brakes dragging malfunction. Anyway, that video was enough for me to probably not book any flights this year, just imagine the absolute horror of gunning down the runway at 200+ mph and just not taking off.
OMG! They drug that 787 off the ground RIGHT at the end of the runway.
That should've been an aborted takeoff far before that point. Prior to departure, the crew calculates a point on the runway where the plane should be at takeoff speed. Failing to reach the proper speed at this point should be an automatic abort since clearly something is not going to plan. Barely being able to get airborne is a major failure, but even getting that far down the runway is also a major failure.
gonna intentionally not watch this so that I don't get the sweats before next takeoff
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Iranian leaders have used the period following the June Memorandum of Understanding not to prepare for deescalation, but for a larger conflict with the United States – Wall Street Journal
In Iran’s view, the MoU was just an attempt by the U.S. and Israel to take pressure off the economy and buy time for a larger attack in the future.
- Middle East Spectator
whahhh? who told them?
oh right. the sitting vice president. about a day after it was signed.
don't forget the news mega!
Argentina imports 400 million 20,000-peso banknotes printed by the Chinese state-owned company CBPM. In a desperate need to put more currency into circulation due to the crisis, Milei had to resort to a Chinese state-owned company to print more pesos. - El Clarín
BTW Milei has a history of doing this since they privatized their own banknotes printing industry and can't afford to pay it, so they ask another country to do for them and then refuse to pay.
Seems regulation is getting in the way of entrepreneurs (just) printing pesos and saving the day. (/sarcastic)
ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.
i didn't know you could privatise money printing lol
ah, we're at the wheelbarrow stage
Image is of a wheelbarrow full of cash in post-WWI hyperinflation Germany
People are already trading belongs and using anything but pesos to buy stuff. Meanwhile Milei and his elite friends are living off the dollars they get by selling out the country to Israel and USA
Why didn't he go and ask Trump for help?
They even arranged a currency swap with the US recently, but the crisis and inflation are so severe that there's even a shortage of pesos in circulation.
How is increasing the money supply going to reduce inflation?
I believe he wants to swap pesos for dollars so he and his friends can take that for themselfs while the population are forced to eat donkey meat
Ancap stays winning
After the Chilean government authorized the construction of the Chile-China Express submarine internet cable, the US government interfered and threatened to impose sanctions against Chilean authorities if the work began, causing President Kast to reverse the authorization.
Chile is currently ruled by a guy who is the son of a Nazi Soldier, so no surprise here.
Nightmare for Colombians right now:
- President is a cartel lawyer
- Earthquake hits, but he rejects aid from everyone except US & Israel
- During earthquake he spends his time:
- Asking US to bomb Colombia
- Recognizing Israel in Golan Heights.
- Recognizing Morocco in Sahara
Gusanos are the same people who complained about 'ideological foreign policy'. They're the only ones actually doing it, they're sacrificing their country for Zionism. South Americans don't have the same cultural attachment/guilt for jews as anglos, this will go down horribly.
"If Oman gets in the way, we will bomb the shit out of them. Iran must raise the WHITE FLAG OF SURRENDER! They are dying."
Iran’s stock market has reached a new all-time high. Meanwhile, Iran’s inflation unfortunately continues to skyrocket, mostly due to Reformist policies enacted by Pezeshkian.
- Middle East Spectator
China launches Arctic shipping route to bypass Suez, halve transit time to Europe | The Cradle
China is partnering with Russia to create a 'Polar Silk Road' that is increasingly accessible as world temperatures warm and polar ice melts
Hence the US threat to annex Iceland and Greenland, in order to disrupt this as Michael Hudson have pointed out.
Won't this just end up being used by the imperial powers?
the USA and its vassals don't have much by way of nuclear icebreakers and have almost entirely lost the industrial capacity to build them. you need icebreakers at the beginning and end of the season or if a ship gets trapped and you need to get them out
They might try to use precedent of countries like Sweden, Denmark, turkey, now Iran and oman, to charge transit fees
how is the travel time less than half (15 vs 40 days)? the distance is only reduced by like 10%. is there a lot of congestion through the Suez?
i get about 14,000 km from ningbo to felixstowe, uk (per the article) through the bering strait and arctic sea, compared to 20,000 km through the suez or 27,000 km using the route, so it's significantly less than using suez and roughly 50% if the suez is ed up
Additionally to other comments, the Suez only runs on each direction once per day. The transit through the canal is 11-16hrs in real time but you can arrive too late and have to wait until the next day, which effectively doubles your transit time :D
Ok, million dollar idea here: Suez canal 2, just one more canal bro, I swear, it'll fix the congestion.
Lula launched his presidential campaign today. The campaign to defend Latin America's largest nation from US & Israeli takeover has begun. Flávio Bolsonaro launched his presidential campaign today in Brazil, with US & Israeli flags.
Brazil; More Oil reserves found near French Guyana. The Equatorial Margin is being called the "new pre-salt" by experts after Petrobras found hydrocarbons in an exploratory well off the coast of Amapá. The estimated potential in the region is 6 to 10 billion barrels of oil, compared to the 12 billion of the pre-salt.
Al Jazeera - US awards Raytheon $22.9bn Tomahawk missile contract. The US Navy has awarded weapons manufacturer Raytheon (rebranded as RTX) a $22.9bn contract to boost production of Tomahawk cruise missiles. US media recently reported that the armed forces have significantly depleted key munitions stockpiles during the US-Israel war on Iran, including critically important long-range Tomahawks.
“We called on industry to rapidly scale up munitions output, and RTX is delivering,” Acting Secretary of the Navy, Hung Cao said on X. In a statement, RTX said the contract would last for seven years and allow Tomahawk production to increase to more than 1,000 missiles annually, up from 60 per year now.
Raytheon (rebranded as RTX)
RTX off: [no industrial capacity]
RTX ON!!: [still no industrial capacity but a giant grift]
Sounds like they will eventually produce 1000 missiles over 7 years. That would require a ramp up of ~3x production during that 7 years.
Actually producing 1000 per year would require over 16x ramp up, which seems quite unlikely.
They're somehow going to take all this money and build less missiles. I'm not convinced the US can build anything anymore
That would be a - cough - missile shortfall.
okay but where will the rare earths come from to build them
No biggie. I'm sure Raytheon and the other defense firms are attempting some half-baked, error-prone workaround that is expensive beyond belief.
I'm now going to google my own joke to see if it's even possible.
more than 1,000 missiles annually, up from 60 per year now.
huh. over a 15x increase in production?
A 50 year old missile.
Proudly sharing the title of "oldest cruise missile still in service" with that other staple of US cold war deterrence, the AGM86 air-launched cruise missile (yes, the one from that non-canon 1983 James Bond movie wwith Sean Connery!)
Who needs industry, when you've got money?
As proved by the recent 155mm debacle, they don’t actually have to improve production to get the money.
If Trump dies and the US actually has real presidential elections in 2028 - I look forward to all major candidates doing the same thing in trying to get votes in a bipartisan fashion. Republicans and dems will be repeating a Trump mantra but using different words for "We must rebuild our depleted military." And the first budget put forth by President Newsom (or whoever) will probably be for nearly 2 fucking trillion dollars.
And - of course - nothing will be cheap. Who needs cheap stuff like inexpensive drones? They'll pretend it's best idea in the world that the MorePatriot missile has an estimated cost of $20m compared to the "updated" old tech Patriot missile at ~$5 million.
We've talked about private credit and companies hiding their debt in new creative ways before, this WSJ graphic is kind of neat tho.
Don't worry, we have exactly one tech-journalist looking into this.
Looks like some form of reverse funnel system
It looks like some sort of scheme
Yeah, it's an upside-down funnel system, you want in? Once in a lifetime opportunity
Apple is gonna come out of this bubble absolutely dominating American tech. The only ones with the sense to see the grift for what it was rather than thinking they'd be the grift beneficiary like all these other dummies.
looks great! how can i invest?
That’s a clever “iceberg” visualization, definitely gets the major point across without having to understand the finer points.
(The Cradle) Saudi Arabia has reportedly begun offering crude oil sales off the coast of Oman, signalling a strategic maneuver to shuttle more barrels beyond the chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz, Bloomberg reports.
State energy giant Saudi Aramco is facilitating ship-to-ship crude transfers from offshore locations including Sohar in the Gulf of Oman, according to sources familiar with the matter. The offerings focus on Arab Medium and Arab Heavy grades—a clear indication that the oil originates inside Persian Gulf fields before being shuttled past the strategic maritime corridor. (https://t.me/thecradlemedia/66322)
Iranian reformists making a deal with Oman only for it to shuffle oil around the strait would be a very funny development
Quick reminder before this thread really gets going: Death to America and its external zionist tumor. The oppressed peoples of the planet are rising and shaking off their colonizers. Capitalism is trembling. Hasta la victoria siempre.
Lula retains lead in Brazilian presidential race - Prensa Latina
Brasilia, August 17 (Prensa Latina) Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leads the polls for the October elections with 41 percent, compared to 36 percent for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, according to a survey released today.
::: spoiler Article
This result corresponds to the tenth edition of the BTG/Nexus survey, conducted from August 14 to 16, and confirms the president's lead in the first round of the general elections.
The survey, commissioned by the bank BTG Pactual, shows a slight recovery for Lula compared to the previous measurement, from August 10, when he registered 40 percent.
Flávio Bolsonaro, for his part, went from 35 to the new level, although he remains five percentage points behind the head of state.
In the estimated scenario, which presents respondents with a list of candidates, former Goiás governor Ronaldo Caiado appears with five percent, while the founder of the Free Brazil Movement, Renan Santos, and former Minas Gerais governor Romeu Zema each reach four percent.
Other candidates garnered two percent, while blank, null or none votes totaled five percent.
Voters who do not know or did not answer represent two percent, and in the spontaneous mode, without presentation of names, Lula obtains 38 percent and Flávio Bolsonaro gets 29.
On the other hand, the difference narrows in a potential second round between the two main contenders, as Lula would obtain 47 percent of the votes compared to 44 for the legislator.
The result remained unchanged from the previous week's poll and, considering the margin of error of two percentage points, it creates a scenario of a technical tie, noted the research cited by media outlets, such as the portal Brasil 247.
The poll also projects Lula's advantage over other potential opponents: 46 percent versus 41 percent against Zema; 45-42 percent against Caiado; and 47-36 percent against Santos.
It also reveals a highly defined electorate, noting that 78 percent of those who chose a candidate in the first round say their decision is made and will not change until October.
Among Lula's followers, that conviction reaches 86 percent, while it reaches 82 percent in the case of Flávio Bolsonaro's supporters.
According to sex and region, the data show significant differences, with Lula owning 46 percent among women compared to 32 percent for the senator, who leads among men (41-36).
In the Northeast, the president registers 57 percent compared to 25 percent for his rival, who is ahead in the South (47-30).
The survey interviewed two thousand three voters aged 16 and over by telephone in the 27 Brazilian federal units, has a maximum margin of error of two percentage points, a confidence level of 95 percent and was registered with the Superior Electoral Court under protocol BR-03317/2026. :::
Trump threatened to bomb the shit out of Oman.
The Guardian - Referring to ongoing talks between Oman and Iran on control of the strait, while Washington is also pursuing its own talks, Trump told Fox News journalist Trey Yingst:
"If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them."
He added that Iran should “put up the white flag of surrender,” according to Yingst’s post on X on his interview with the president.
If not for the US tendency to hit civilian targets on purpose, this would be good news!
::: spoiler Article
Moscow, August 17 (Prensa Latina) During a visit to Havana, a delegation from the Russian Civic Chamber donated humanitarian aid to Cuba to support the country's population, the Russkiy Mir.ru channel reported today.
According to the report, which cited the Russian Civic Chamber as its source, the delegation from the Slavic nation donated food, sweets, portable flashlights, USB drives, and first aid kits to the Cuban population suffering from an energy crisis due to Washington's actions.
The donation ceremony took place during a meeting with the board of directors of the Cuban Institute of Friendship between Peoples (ICAP), within the framework of the commemorative events for the centenary of Fidel Castro.
Nikita Anisimov, a member of the Russian Civic Chamber and the Rossotrudnichestvo Public Council, emphasized that Russia stands in solidarity with Cuba and will continue to support it in all international forums in which its NGOs participate.
The first vice president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship between Peoples, Noemí Rabasa, expressed her gratitude to Russia for its help at a time when Cubans lack basic products such as medicine, fuel and food.
During the trip, Russian representatives participated in the Solidarity Forum organized by the Cuban Institute of Friendship Among Peoples. As part of the cultural program, Russian violinist Pyotr Lundstrem, a guest of the Havana International Book Fair, gave a concert for the Cuban public. :::
first
drink a big glass of water if you're firsty
