Argentine Government Announces a Total Crackdown On Protests

The new "Security Protocol" precedes potential widespread discontent in a country where nearly 45 percent of the population is poor.

On Friday, social and political groups in Argentina rejected the "Security Protocol" announced by Security Minister Bullrich, labeling it as unconstitutional.

"If the streets are taken, there will be consequences," Bullrich declared in anticipation of street protests following the economic policies promoted by the far-right President Javier Milei.

"The four federal forces and the penitentiary service will intervene in the face of blockades whether partial or total. The law is not fulfilled halfway. The law is either fulfilled or not," she said.

In the case of blatant crimes being committed, Argentine security forces will intervene immediately, using force progressively in proportion to the resistance people pose.

"Streets are not to be taken. We will restore order to the country so that people can live in peace," Bullrich affirmed, warning that the Milei administration will penalize those who make, organize, instigate, or are accomplices to blockades.

It will also inspect the facilities of organizations suspected of promoting protests, establish a ban on marching with covered faces, or bringing children to protests. If participants are foreigners with temporary residence, they will be reported to the Immigration Directorate.

The far-right regime also threatened to make groups related to the organization of protests pay for the costs of the deployment of federal security forces.

These repressive measures precede potential widespread discontent in a country where nearly 45 percent of the population is poor.

In the short term, Argentinians will have to cope with a year-on-year inflation rate of 161 percent, which could escalate to hyperinflation of 15,000 percent in the coming years, as acknowledged by Milei himself.

Leaders of workers' organizations such as Vanina Biasi, Gabriel Solano, and Eduardo Belliboni upheld the constitutional right to protest, emphasizing that the Milei regime "lacks legal authority" to prevent it.

"What bothers them is that people protest against the measures of their government," said legislator Myriam Bregman from the Left Front and Workers (FIT), who recalled that far-right activists previously blocked roads to protest against progressive governments.

The leader of the Public Workers' Association (ATE), Rodolfo Aguiar, emphasized that social conflicts should not be resolved by the police or the judiciary but by those who govern because that's why they were elected.

"The measure announced by the minister aims to address the consequences and not the causes of the protests. If they don't want conflicts, then the government should stop economic adjustments and increase salaries."

John Helmer on material materialism for uranium reactor fuel.

https://johnhelmer.org/us-house-of-representatives-passes-depleted-brains-blackout-bill-for-banning-imports-of-russian-uranium/#more-71175

The clowns in Congress are at it again, passing a ban on Russian reactor fuel with many loopholes for power plants and the pentagon. I doubt much comes of this in practice beyond higher fuel costs that are passed on to ratepayers, but still JH brings up some interesting data and observations about the long term nature of fuel supply. This is another one of those commodity sectors where the US absolutely could and has done this domestically before, but hollowed itself out in favour of putting addictive pharmaceuticals on the blockchain. Money printing alone won't bring that capacity back, so no one should be holding their breath.

Your Tuesday Briefing

Either my standards have gone up or there really isn't much going on right now.

French lawmakers have rejected an immigration bill that would facilitate the deportation of migrants "who pose a serious threat to the public order", increase resources to combat smuggling networks, and grant one-year work visas to irregular migrants working off-the-books in sectors with labour shortages. The right rejected it for being too friendly to migrants - they wanted even greater tools to get rid of them. The left rejected it for being not friendly enough to migrants - they wanted irregular migrants to be given an unconditional right to stay and work in France.

After the PiS party in Poland refused to go gently into that good night after losing a majority in parliament, they tried to rule as a minority government and have now been forced out due to a vote of no confidence, and Donald Tusk has been elected the new Prime Minister, ending the two-term rule of the radical right-wing party.

Iran is launching a joint venture with Chinese tech companies to employ AI to digitalize production in oil and gas fields, hoping for a 20% improvement in efficiency. This is probably just gonna be some kind of advanced algorithm that for some reason is being called "AI" because that's the mandatory buzzword to attract funding. I love that the image that the author chose for this article is something from like, a futuristic citybuilding game. Anyway.

South Korea's President has kicked off a visit to the Netherlands to forge a chip alliance between the two chip powerhouses, visiting, in particular, ASML, which makes the cutting edge chipmaking equipment that the world relies on. I assume that the entire point of this meeting will be to try and find ways to make the sanctions on China actually work, and they will obviously fail, as western sanctions are increasingly meaningless.

Due to a union dispute, 400 miners were underground for four days in South Africa, eventually forced to leave due to hunger and thirst. There was a similar event in October. To be honest, I've read several articles covering this and I have no idea what's going on with South African miners right now.

The UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA, lowered the UN flag at its headquarters in Bamako, closing ten years of deployment after the government ordered them out due to their ineffectiveness in solving the crisis.

The US has hit companies in Turkiye, the UAE, and China with more sanctions to try and stop Russia from obtaining "high priority" goods like microchips. Why are we still doing this? What's the definition of insanity again?

The Biden administration "Red light! Green light!" shtick rolls on.

White House walks back Biden remarks that Israel was losing international support over Gaza bombing

The White House went on the defensive Wednesday afternoon over Joe Biden’s eye-raising comments to Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing”, and that Netanyahu should change his hard-right dominated government.

John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, attempted to downplay the remarks of the US president at a lunchtime press briefing from the White House.

Biden’s comments were the sharpest public disagreement yet between the allies over the conduct and future of the war against Hamas.

Kirby was evasive when asked if it was the official US government position that Israel was indiscriminately bombing civilians:

The president was expressing concerns about the civilian casualties that we’ve seen. It’s reflective of our constant efforts to urge the Israelis to be as precise and careful as possible. We know they’ve stated their intent to reduce the casualties and they have acted on that. They are making efforts and they are taking steps, but we want to see, of course, more results in that regard. That’s what he’s referring to.

Similarly, Kirby avoided a question about what specific changes in the Israeli government Biden wanted to see:

It’s not for us to to dictate terms to a foreign sovereign government. Israel is a democracy. And the Israeli people get to decide what that government looks like and they did. And we respect that. That’s what democracy is all about. We’re not dictating terms to the Israelis one way or the other.

- The Guardian

Brazil’s Senate approves Lula ally as new Supreme Court justice

Brazil’s Senate approved the appointment of Justice Minister Flávio Dino on Wednesday to take a seat on the country’s Supreme Court.

Dino, a former leftist state governor who cracked down on supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro after they rampaged through government buildings last January, was approved for the court of 11 justics on a vote of 47-31.

The vote, which came after a full day of speeches by senators in a divisive hearing, underscored that the opposition led by the rightist Bolsonaro is not strong enough to block the agenda of his leftist successor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Dino will replace former Chief Justice Rosa Maria Weber, who stepped down in September after turning 75, the age limit for the nation’s Supreme Court justices.

Dino, who was a federal judge for 12 years before starting his political career, governed Brazil’s northeastern state of Maranhao in 2015-2023. His decisions to impose curfews and movement restrictions during the pandemic made him an antagonist of Bolsonaro, who argued against strict measures against COVID-19.

“He is one of the few Brazilians who has had jobs in the executive, the legislative and the judiciary,” Sen. Weverton Rocha said before the vote. “He clearly suits the supreme court well. He knows how to behave in every role he has had.”

Sen. Magno Malta, an evangelical leader and staunch Bolsonaro supporter, voted against the appointment over Dino’s past in the country’s communist party and as a member of the Brazilian Socialist Party.

“He has never hidden he is a communist, a marxist,” Malta said. “We are taking a communist to the Supreme Court. His team is the left, it is against everything I believe in.”

Dino is the second Supreme Court justice appointed by Lula, who is in his third term as president, who also was in the top post in 2003-2010. Cristiano Zanin, once Lula’s lawyer, was approved to join the court in July on a 58-18 vote in the Senate.

Feminist activists have criticized Lula for not naming a woman to replace Weber on the high court. Its only female member now is Justice Carmen Lúcia.

Senators also approved Paulo Gonet as Brazil’s prosecutor-general on a 65-11 vote. He will replace Bolsonaro-appointee Augusto Aras.

Lula says his government managed to put a "communist" on the Supreme Court.

"You don't know how happy I am today. For the first time in the history of this country, we've managed to put a communist on the Supreme Court, a comrade of the quality of Flávio Dino," said the President of the Republic.

Dino is due to be sworn in as a Supreme Court minister officially on February 22. Until then, the former governor of Maranhão and senator will remain in charge of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. He will take over the position vacated by Rosa Weber, who retired at the end of September.

The top stories at The Times of Israel are from an alternate, even more ghoulish universe.

I slept at around evening and now I'm awake in the very early morning.

I have a headache but I think my depression and despair has abated for now.

Ignatius op-ed may indicate a shift in the CIA's view on US policy towards Israel:

In the West Bank, I saw how peace will require confrontation with Israel

https://archive.is/HWtZZ

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/16/west-bank-settlers-violence-peace/

DB board members subsequently collect five million euros in bonuses despite missing targets for punctuality and customer satisfaction

There are generous basic salaries totaling four million euros for the board members last year, company cars for professional and private use, rental subsidies for second homes and other extras. But no one wants to miss out on the bonuses.

The bosses define goals that can be easily achieved or exceeded, which compensate for the rather poor performance in the areas of route renovation, punctuality and customer satisfaction.

If goals such as customer satisfaction and punctuality are not achieved, employee satisfaction, the number of ICE trains provided or increasing the proportion of female managers take effect. So it doesn't matter to the management team that they claim zero percent target achievement in terms of punctuality and customer satisfaction.

It must be so easy being one of those ghouls running the Deutsche Bahn into the ground.