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Bulletins and International News Discussion from December 22nd to December 28th, 2025 - The War on Christmas - De-Decemberization (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 week ago by SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net
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A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

As is tradition, at around this time of year, we discuss the latest developments in the communist plan to destroy Christmas and everything festive and jolly - including that bastard kulak Santa Claus. Down with holly and myrrh, and up with historical materialism!

This year, I'm highlighting the economic trend of de-Decemberization, as the world struggles to break free from the seasonal hegemony imposed by the North Pole. Some regard it as a rather overhyped phenomenon, stating that the chains of Christmas are too frozen for any country to thaw and break in the current environment. Others are more optimistic, and assert that perhaps an alternative world holiday could be established to outright replace it, or maybe a series of smaller holiday traditions can bring it down like a pack of wolves bringing down a moose.

To return to seriousness, as this year draws to a close, I hope everybody here - yes, also you, the person reading this - has a 2026 that was better than 2025, and that the efforts of the United States and their proxies are foiled at every turn. One day, humans will live in a world free from empires, and it would be nice if as many of us as possible lived to see that world's birth.

At the very least, I'd like to live to see an aircraft carrier sink beneath the waves.

Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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 Israel's 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.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
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.

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[-] seaposting@hexbear.net 30 points 2 days ago
South-east Asia’s broken east flank in Indochina: Myanmar's problem

I don’t agree with everything the author says, his commentary is quite typical of ASEAN non-alignment, with some (mild) anti-China sentiments abound but not typically to the level of the West.

Choice quotes below.

The scale of China’s dependence on Myanmar reveals the depth of this transformation.

In 2023, Myanmar became China’s largest external supplier of heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium and terbium—critical inputs for electric vehicles, advanced electronics, and modern weapons systems.

China imported roughly 41,700 metric tons that year, accounting for more than 90 percent of its heavy rare earth supply.

Yet these minerals do not come from areas controlled by the central government in Naypyidaw.

They are extracted almost entirely from territories governed by ethnic armed organisations in Kachin and northern Shan States.

…[China] does not secure its supply chains in Myanmar by choosing between the junta and the resistance, or by waiting for an elusive national peace. Instead, it works with whoever governs the ground that matters.

Central institutions in Beijing handle formal diplomacy, sovereign agreements, and military-to-military ties with Naypyidaw. At the same time, provincial security and intelligence agencies based in Yunnan manage relations with ethnic armed organisations along the border. These local agencies possess decades of experience, granular intelligence, and practical leverage that central ministries lack.

...Yet this strategy carries grave risks.

The more China relies on armed groups to secure its interests, the more it erodes the authority of the central state.

If Naypyidaw weakens beyond a critical threshold, Myanmar could slide into total state collapse. Such an outcome would not serve China’s interests.

…China is therefore engaged in a delicate balancing act: weakening the state enough to ensure compliance, but not so much that it disintegrates. It is betting that permanent fragmentation can be managed indefinitely.

For South-east Asia, this is a sobering lesson. Indochina’s eastern flank is no longer simply contested by great powers; it is being reorganised around corridors, commodities, and controlled disorder.

Traditional notions of sovereignty and non-interference are increasingly misaligned with realities on the ground.

…The real question is no longer who will rule Myanmar — but whether the region can prevent fragmentation from becoming the default model of order.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 19 points 2 days ago

I worry that it could be turned into China's Syria

[-] aanes_appreciator@hexbear.net 19 points 1 day ago

I was about to comment to the same effect ngl. China is falling into the same trap that Russia did by playing a passive role in a conflict that could have strategic implications if the US gets involved. The only saving grace is that the empire seems to pivoting to secure its backlines, because otherwise a scenario where the US has control over REMs vital to the Chinese economic strategy would be... unfortunate.

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[-] Socialism_Is_The_Alternative@hexbear.net 48 points 2 days ago

Today, Russian forces fully liberated the Donetsk People’s Republic city of Dimitrov and the Zaporozhye oblast city of Gulyaypole: https://tass.com/politics/2065749

Meanwhile, Russian forces continue repelling Kiev regime attacks on the Kharkov oblast city of Kupyansk: https://sputnikglobe.com/20251227/russian-forces-repel-3-ukrainian-attacks-aiming-to-break-through-to-kupyansk---mod-1123373996.html

Some (18+) combat footage of Russian FPV drone strikes on Kiev regime troops attacking Kupyansk: https://s1.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/r2-1.mp4

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Some (18+) combat footage of Russian FPV drone strikes on Kiev regime troops attacking Kupyansk: https://s1.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/r2-1.mp4

I wonder if you could make a rapid deployable device that is basically a tent pole and netting over a 5-10meter radius in a dome shape. Something one member of a squad could carry but would effectively allow a whole squad to have a rapidly deployable shield against suicide drones. None of these drones can deal with a net, if you put a 5meter distance between the drone and the infantry they would survive.

[-] Staines@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

As with all these drones, it's just rock paper scissors. Russian drones seem to be using a lot of RPG-7 warheads, like OG-7V's, TBG-7's, PG-7V2's. All of those would have (some) lethal effects through a 5 meter radius dome. If the net becomes a prison, you'd see a return to the earlier grenade-drop types trying to hit troops that can't escape their net. If the net is open enough to allow people to escape, the optical suicide drones would find a way in the moment someone lets their guard down. Many of these drones seem to be using PG-7V2 type shells, in which case they're basically firing a 5 meter long hot copper lance into the target. We've gone from drones that cause mass casualties and high injury rates to drones that just absolutely dead-dead you with virtually no chance of survival.

In many situations you'd probably be better going out with everyone carrying a couple of rolls of netting and nailing it into trees/walls to create (relatively) safe harbours in the forest. You could probably get the right shapes by bringing some fishing line to tie things together, and maybe some lead fishing weights. And even then, this video had people being hit inside netting fortifications by drones finding ingress points.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

Well my thinking with a net is that the squad would still fire out of it, there would just be considerably more safety than panicking and then burying their face in the ground.

n many situations you'd probably be better going out with everyone carrying a couple of rolls of netting and nailing it into trees/walls to create (relatively) safe harbours in the forest.

Only 100% enclosed spaces are safe. Any gaps and the drones find their way in, they're quite nimble and able to navigate through spaces as small as a car window.

I just want a lightweight rapid deployable, something that goes up in 10seconds at the push of a button. One squad member simply holds the device and hits the switch and then the pole extends upwards and all the netting fires from the top in a dome shape. Boom, instant safe(r)zone. One of the big problems this video shows is panic causing people to run and not fight back against the incoming drone, or resignation to the fact they're about it be hit. They need something that helps eliminate these impulses.

[-] SchillMenaker@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Don't forget about artillery. A squad huddling in a big immobile dome is going to get mega blown up by a 155mm shell.

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[-] aanes_appreciator@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Seems like something both feasible and cheap to manufacture.

I wonder if it would end up obsolete pretty quickly once (anti-personnel) drones are modified to use a proximity or manually-triggered fuze. You could even have some kind of dead man's switch that's activated on final approach to trigger the explosives once the propellers stop spinning, which was the working principle for WW2-era torpedoes and bombs for some time.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They would have to switch to using two different types of drones, anti-personnel and anti-vehicle. You could defeat netting with frag explosives instead of these drones which are designed primarily to hit vehicles.

This increases logistics and production needs though. I also don't think troops in the field would like it because when you launch your drone you don't really have a plan for what you're attacking as you don't know what you'll find, they want multi-purpose drones not specialised ones. I think it would work for at least a year.

[-] Socialism_Is_The_Alternative@hexbear.net 17 points 2 days ago

As an update, Russian forces also liberated the Zaporozhye oblast town of Stepnogorsk today:

https://maratkhairullin.substack.com/p/brief-frontline-report-december-27th (this daily summary contains video footage of the liberation of these settlements)

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 59 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

A satellite photo released by the Chinese private aerospace intelligence firm MizarVision showed a fleet of U.S. F-35 fighter jets at Jose Aponte de la Torre Airport, Puerto Rico, Dec. 25, 2025.

[-] aanes_appreciator@hexbear.net 44 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

>invents invisible fighter jet

>visible from space

lol goteem

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[-] MelianPretext@lemmygrad.ml 57 points 3 days ago

Yesterday was Mao's birthday and Chinese game developer Hoothanes released a new gameplay trailer for their game "The Defiant" set in WW2 China.

Pretty "Internationale" news worthy because this might actually make it the first time ever (at 5:00 in the video) I think the song has been used in a game trailer (I can't recall any games in general that used it at all either).

[-] SickSemper@hexbear.net 41 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Thank god, the only way to improve is through trial and error and the Chinese games industry needs to keep trying. Wukong/phantom blade/chinese soulslike fatigue is setting in, so I’m glad to see some experimentation, even if mid-budget anti-Japanese War FPS’s will likely be the next oversaturated type.

Just watched it. Looks alright, the inconsistent hit markers, generic linear gameplay, and the pistol/rifle/mg sounds rub me the wrong way, but I’m still intrigued and excited at the future of Chinese game dev. Now I want to replay world at war…

The song did get me though, glory to the heroic anti-imperialist struggle and those who died to liberate China from occupation

[-] WokePalpatine@hexbear.net 23 points 2 days ago

Chinese Battlefield.
Chinese MGS.
Chinese ICO.
Chinese Tatics Ogre.
Chinese Bubsy.
Chinese Thunderforce.
Chinese Sonic.
Chinese Harvest Moon.
Chinese Sega Bass Fishing.

[-] 9to5@hexbear.net 18 points 2 days ago

Sign me up for Chinese Bubsy where you collect 100 red stars

[-] WokePalpatine@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Shoulda' said Chinese Gex. Chinese Gex would be good.

Edit: He's here.

[-] Boise_Idaho@hexbear.net 14 points 2 days ago

CRPG = ~~Computer~~ Chinese Role Playing Game

[-] grouchy@hexbear.net 13 points 2 days ago

Chinese Tatics Ogre.

Sword of Convallaria. Its only (and admittedly massive) flaw is that it's gacha, with all that entails. But the writing and worldbuilding more than makes up for it. Without spoilers, I suspect the Night Crimson storyline is modeled on 20s-30s Shanghai and the "true ending" route is similarly inspired by the anti-Japanese resistance. One of the major antagonistic forces is also pretty obviously an "anachronistic" fantasy US analogue, with a really interesting though underdeveloped take on how subjugated people get subsumed by empire; along similar lines, the primary gimmick of the setting is a really obvious oil analogue and the "protagonist" faction has a lot of very deliberate Arabic/Middle Eastern naming despite aesthetically being standard Euro fantasy kingdom, though unusually it leans more gunpowder fantasy than pseudo-medieval, and miners for example are a key faction/aspect of the plot and the backstory. And there's even a route that's basically "capitalism maybe works as a short term solution but not in the long run" lol.

(apologies for OT/resumes lurking)

[-] WokePalpatine@hexbear.net 12 points 2 days ago

Don't want Chinese Pokemon though. No way that would be good.

[-] aanes_appreciator@hexbear.net 9 points 1 day ago

Chinese Pokemon Go would be really funny coz imagine how much moral panic it would induce with a Chinese company recording the geolocation data of millions of Americans

[-] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 6 points 2 days ago

Original Pokémon hasn’t been good in decades

[-] MelianPretext@lemmygrad.ml 29 points 2 days ago

Slowly but surely, their gaming industry will work their way into ushering in the Korean War/Fatherland Liberation War/War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea anti-American FPS gaming era that leftists have long been waiting for.

Millennial and Gen Z gamers/redditors will then finally contribute their part to propping up Western GDP growth through the dentures industry once they've gnashed their teeth to stubs at the anti-American FPS "overcapacity" while clutching their grimy CD copies of Battlefield 4 (the last major anti-Chinese FPS before Western execs figured they’d need to ditch the overt sinophobia for some access to the massive Chinese gaming market).

[-] aanes_appreciator@hexbear.net 9 points 1 day ago

The last games I've played that were even vaguely pro Soviet/PRC* with some kind of mainstream appeal were Call of Duty: World at War and Red Orchestra 2 (and that one was more niche fr fr). Like, the scenes of storming the Reichstag to raise the Soviet flag, or a massively (for its time) multiplayer battle that placed the Soviets as equally-effective forces to the Nazis (not just some human-wave propaganda spin). It would be nice to have a period-piece FPS that didn't make me feel icky coz you can feel the ideology leeching through the screen.

* Yes, Wolfenstein is anti-Nazi but still leaned into this bullshit idealism of the "freedom-yearning American" with a cameo from a liberalized Angela Davis. A lot of its "anti-fascist" credentials are just projection of cope onto their viral marketing campaign that made use of the anteefa moral panic moreso than any principled antifascism.

[-] SickSemper@hexbear.net 24 points 2 days ago

I unironically believe this, gamer Sinophobia has been a punchline for at least a decade now, but the tide is turning. Road To Empress was good content for western streamers and I have a feeling we’ll see more similar breakout successes in the future

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Wukong/phantom blade/chinese soulslike fatigue is setting in

I don't think it is setting in. Where Winds Meet has been immensely popular and it has souls-like boss combat. Game is pretty good I've been enjoying it. Wuxia and Xianxia have plenty of energy for a wider market than dark gritty games. Downside is that there's not much room within the setting for socialism.

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[-] Socialism_Is_The_Alternative@hexbear.net 73 points 3 days ago

Nigerian locals say that the area that Washington drone attacked today has not had a terrorist presence for many years:

"African media journalist Nasiru Suleiman claims that in the Tambuwal district of Sokoto State, local residents haven't heard of any militants or radicals for at least a decade. And residents of the Nigerian village of Jabo were sleeping peacefully in their homes at the time of the American attack, until they were awakened by the explosion of an aerial bomb.

Suleiman's colleague, Mahmud Jeba, who is originally from Sokoto State, was very surprised to learn that this particular region was the target of the American attack. He argued that if the US military had wanted to strike militants from Boko Haram, an ISIS affiliate, they should have attacked Borno State, where the terrorists have been based since approximately 2009."

https://en.topwar.ru/275672-smi-udar-ssha-prishelsja-po-rajonu-nigerii-gde-mnogie-gody-ne-bylo-terroristov.html

[-] Lovely_sombrero@hexbear.net 23 points 2 days ago

I don't know if these people are reliable, but these seem to be unexploded warheads;

https://x.com/Easybakeovensz/status/2004803288353702362

[-] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago

Trevor Ball knows what he's talking about and is reliable on this, those are unexploded warheads from Tomahawk cruise missiles.

[-] LeninWeave@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

A 25% (3/12) failure rate seems absurd. Is that normal for cruise missiles?

[-] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Depends on the circumstances. Did they fail to detonate because they were unable to find their target and thus did not explode as a safety measure, or was there a failure with the fuse (in one of the videos in the above post you can see the missile hit a building and punched a hole in it, but failed to explode), etc. How many missiles were launched? 12, 16, 20? There's conflicting numbers here.

25% failure rate is pretty high. In general anything higher than 10-15 % failure rate is high for Tomahawk historically. For JASSM, anything higher than 5% would be high based off of testing data.

Most concerning is the handprints on one of the unexploded warheads. Please don't touch unexploded ordinance!

[-] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Please don't touch unexploded ordinance!

Something about the idea of teaching this to my child just hit me square in the feelings.

Death to fucking amerikkka

[-] la_tasalana_intissari_mata@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago

Trevor Ball knows ball as the kids would say

[-] PosadistInevitablity@hexbear.net 48 points 3 days ago

Dumbass racists just randomly bombing a country twice the size of France and hoping to hit the terrorists.

[-] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 41 points 3 days ago

i don't think they care who they hit tbh, just that they can get away with it

[-] miz@hexbear.net 39 points 3 days ago

"we may be rapidly falling behind the nefarious celestials, but have you seen how good we are at killing random African people?"

[-] Lisitsyn@hexbear.net 29 points 3 days ago

the anglos are attacking sokoto again

[-] Tervell@hexbear.net 70 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

lol. lmao. https://archive.ph/fD7gA

Choked By China, U.S. Relies On Abandoned French Factory Stockpile To Keep F-35s, Tomahawks Flying

The US is the world’s preeminent military power. ... The US is also the world’s largest arms exporter, controlling 44% of the global weapons market. ... However, the country’s mighty defense-industrial complex is currently surviving by a thread, as its only source of a critical heavy rare-earth magnet used in fifth-generation stealth fighter jets such as the F-35 and lethal missiles like Tomahawks is a decades-old samarium dump abandoned in a bankrupt factory in France.

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Even more worryingly, this samarium dump can supply the US defense industry for barely a year; beyond that, there are no credible alternative supply plans in place. How the US got into this rabbit hole, despite pioneering the technology of samarium processing and its various uses in the defense industry in the 1960s, is a story as bizarre as today’s situation, where some of the world’s largest defense giants are living on a thread, not sure how long their supply of critical heavy rare earth magnets will last.

The Making Of Samarium Supply Bottlenecks

The US pioneered the development of samarium-cobalt (SmCo) permanent magnets, the primary defense-related use of samarium. These high-performance magnets, which offer strong magnetic fields, excellent resistance to demagnetization, and superior high-temperature stability, were invented based on work by Karl Strnat at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Alden Ray at the University of Dayton. Due to their remarkable properties, Samarium Cobalt magnets are used in aircraft and satellite systems, as well as missile guidance and control systems. However, the industry moved to China in the 1980s for a variety of reasons, including the presence of rich rare-earth deposits, lax environmental regulations (samarium processing is extremely polluting), and heavy state subsidies from the Chinese Communist government. Today, China mines, processes, and sells such massive quantities of rare earths that it can keep prices artificially low, knocking out any foreign competition. Over the decades, all Western companies that processed rare earths went out of business, unable to compete with China’s prices. Today, China mines nearly 60% of the world’s rare earths and processes almost 90% of rare-earth magnets. However, China controls nearly all of the world’s supply of Samarium Cobalt magnets.

Earlier this year, in response to US President Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs on China, Beijing imposed strict restrictions on the export of rare-earth magnets. Subsequently, China removed restrictions on the export of several light and medium rare-earth magnets; however, restrictions on the export of heavy rare-earth magnets, including Samarium Cobalt magnets, remained in place. China began requiring export licenses for samarium and six other rare-earth metals in April this year, choking the supply for US defense giants. Underscoring the criticality of samarium supply chains for the US, the U.S. Geological Survey named samarium the No. 1 critical mineral at highest risk of supply chain vulnerabilities in October in its proposed 2025 Critical Mineral List. The chokehold China exerted on the supply of samarium could have halted production of many critical defense systems in the US. However, a decades-old samarium dump in a bankrupt factory in France gave the US defense giants a lifeline.

Samarium Dump In A Bankrupt Factory That Gave Lifeline To US Defense Giants

New York-based Arnold Magnetic Technologies, a subsidiary of US conglomerate Compass Diversified and manufacturer of samarium-cobalt magnets with factories in Switzerland, Thailand, and China, had over a year’s supply of the metal on hand when China announced its export controls on April 4, said Aaron Williams, the company’s chief commercial officer. However, as months passed and their supply plummeted, the company began to worry. Arnold contacted UK-based Less Common Metals, one of the last remaining manufacturers of rare-earth metals in the Western world. Less Common Metals contacted Solvay, a Belgian chemical company that was once one of the world’s largest producers of rare-earth oxides. Luckily, Solvay had a factory in France that still had a decades-old, abandoned samarium dump. Solvay had stopped separating rare-earth elements in France two decades ago because it had become “uneconomical,” a company spokeswoman told the New York Times. Samarium processed outside China is five to eight times as expensive. But Solvay kept its stock of semifinished materials and still had the know-how and equipment to refine it. Solvay’s entire inventory was around 200 tons, enough to supply the US defense industry for a year.

The U.S. defense industry requires less than 200 tons per year, according to estimates by Jack Lifton, co-chair of the Critical Minerals Institute, an industry advisory organization. Less Common Metals (LCM) brought Solvay’s samarium to Britain, where the company is turning it into metal that will be melted into alloys. These alloys will be cut into magnets at US factories, which will in turn be supplied to US defense giants for use in fighter jets and missile systems. “As market demand accelerates for sustainable, Western-sourced magnet materials, Arnold is taking decisive action to guarantee supply and provide commercial flexibility for our customers,” Aaron Williams, chief commercial officer of Arnold Magnetic Technologies, said. “We are very pleased to partner with LCM and Arnold Magnetic Technologies to provide essential resources for high-performance applications, particularly in the strategic domain of the European Aerospace Industry,” An Nuyttens, president of GBU Special Chem at Solvay, said. Notably, to further secure supply chains, the UK-based LCM was acquired by American miner USA Rare Earth on November 18. The acquisition demonstrates vertical integration strategies aimed at securing Western-origin material sources.

Even though these samarium magnets are much more expensive than the prices at which China was supplying the US until months ago, they provided a lifeline to the US defense-industrial complex at a critical time. For now, the US has secured its supply of samarium magnets for at least a year, and the industry is confident that new samarium sources will be found before Solvay’s stash runs out. China might also relax its export restrictions in the meantime. However, as a popular saying goes, “Once burned, twice shy,” the US will be extremely cautious in the future, avoiding entirely depending on China for the supply of such a critical mineral.

[-] Tervell@hexbear.net 68 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

oh, you want some spare parts for your F-35? uh, well, let me just check... oops

pg. 75, https://comptroller.war.gov/Portals/45/Documents/afr/fy2025/DoD_FY25_Agency_Financial_Report.pdf

Through our audit procedures, we determined that the DoD did not account for or report Global Spares Pool assets for the Joint Strike Fighter Program, or accurately record this government property in an accountable property system of record. The DoD could not provide or obtain accurate reliable data to verify the existence, completeness, or value of its Global Spares Pool assets for the Joint Strike Fighter program and did not report this government property on its financial statements as of September 30, 2025. This occurred because DoD officials did not use contracting mechanisms to request financial data to support the valuation of government property or implement procedures to account for and manage government property in accordance with SFFAS 3 and 6.

from an earlier report about this same problem, explaining what this "Global Spares Pool" is:

Rather than owning the spare parts for their aircraft, the program participants share a common, global pool of spare parts that DOD owns and the prime contractors manage. These spare parts are held in over 50 domestic and international non-prime contractor facilities.

holy shit the F-35 genuinely is subscription-based software applied to military equipment, you don't even get to own your spare parts?!

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[-] vovchik_ilich@hexbear.net 73 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Not exactly news but I don't remember seeing this posted here:

Radio Free Asia stops transmitting in Uyghur due to Trump budget cuts (news from July this year).

The article is :cognitohazard: so open at your own risk

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this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
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  1. Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.

  2. Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.

  3. Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.

  4. Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.

  5. Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.

  6. Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.

  7. American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.

  8. Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.

  9. AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.

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