How do y'all think this conflict would have played out if Iran had decided that building a nuclear weapon was actually in its best interest?

The package of measures to be announced by Javier Milei (Spanish Only)

The President will speak on national TV to detail the scope of the decree that will repeal laws such as the Rent and Supply laws, modify labor regulations and open the privatization process of State-owned companies. Afterwards, he will send to Congress a series of economic emergency projects, such as the return of the Income Tax for workers and a new law for the "blanqueo".

Coincidence or timing, Javier Milei will unveil the mystery behind his austerity package possibly on the same day that leftist social organizations will march against its consequences in downtown Buenos Aires. It will be through a national chain, the first of his term of office. The versions indicate that the President will explain this Wednesday the scope of the economic deregulation decree.

The Decree of Necessity and Urgency will include from the repeal of dozens of laws to a labor reform. It will be, however, the first step of a two-step movement: first the DNU, and then the package of economic emergency bills that will be sent to the Chamber of Deputies between Thursday and Friday. There will be the core of the reforms that Milei wants to pass before the honeymoon period of his government and the citizenship expires, before the resistances deepen.

The President will deliver his message in the afternoon, although there was no official confirmation at the time of going to press. It will be a message explaining -and justifying- the Decree of Necessity and Urgency which will include more than 500 articles. Part of it will be oriented to the repeal of several laws regulating the economy (most of them enacted to avoid abuses by the market), such as the Rent Law and the Supply Law. A group of officials of La Libertad Avanza, including the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, and the former head of the Central Bank, Federico Sturzenegger, collaborated in the drafting of the bill.

The other leg will be the labor reform, which will not pass through Congress as some unions were demanding. The changes will include the replacement of severance payments by severance funds -which will be, according to LLA, "voluntary"-, as well as the elimination of fines for improperly registered (or unregistered) work. It is speculated, in turn, that the DNU will also include the first step for the privatization of some of the State-owned companies. That is to say: to modify their status to that of corporations.

The DNU, however, will only be the initial step. The first sample of the tenor of the adjustment program that Javier Milei plans for the beginning of his government. Between Thursday and Friday it will take on its full dimension, when the Executive will send to Congress the package of economic emergency measures which, this time, will have to be supported by the opposition in order to be implemented. The two main axes of this package will be the reversal of the Income Tax reform and a new law for the "blanqueo" (laundering of taxpayers' money).

The Congressional bidding

"There are measures that are not friendly and there is no other choice. But when the President takes this kind of emergency measures to reverse the extremely serious situation in which we find ourselves, we know that they will be temporary, they will not last 40 years". Martin Menem's phrase resounded in the lower chamber of the Chamber of Deputies, a couple of hours after the governors' meeting in Casa Rosada.

During a toast with journalists, the President of the Lower House was referring to the package of initiatives that will enter the Congress between Thursday and Friday. But not just any law, but those which, going against everything Milei had said during the campaign, would condense the core of the "economic emergency". That is to say: the restitution or increase of taxes, that which the libertarian economist had defined as a "robbery" on numerous occasions.

The main focus of conflict will be the restoration of the income tax for the fourth category: a reversal of the reform that Sergio Massa had led during the campaign and that Milei himself had supported. The libertarian government's horizon is the zero deficit, so it will bet on increasing tax collection by lowering the non-taxable minimum (which with the reform had been set at 15 minimum wages). It will be ideologically uncomfortable for Milei and, furthermore, it is not entirely clear that he will have the numbers to approve it, because Unión por la Patria has already expressed its opposition and, at the same time, several provincial blocks are reluctant to vote for it. On the other hand, many governors asked for the co-participation of 50 percent of the check tax, but the bill, as far as this newspaper has learned, will not be included in the package of measures.

There will be, on the other hand, other tax reforms -such as a modification of Bienes Personales or the increase of the PAIS tax-, but also others of an electoral political nature. This is the case of the elimination of the PASO and the implementation of the Single Paper Ballot (which had already been approved by the Chamber of Deputies), although LLA insists that the "priority" will be the economic laws. In turn, a law on money laundering will be included, although there will not be a draft Budget 2024. "To have a serious budget it is necessary to have serious variables, otherwise it is a drawing, as it has been so far. It is not the moment", stated from LLA, from where they bet on the extension of the Budget 2023 with the objective of liquefying the items based on inflation.

Until the package of bills enters the front desk of the Chamber of Deputies -which is where the laws will be discussed-, LLA is sharpening its knives. Menem is gathering his troops, distributing functions -they need an economic spokesperson to defend the adjustment and they do not have many names, although Marcela Pagano's name is being mentioned- and negotiating places in the commissions with the opposition.

With only 38 deputies of its own, the ruling party will be in the minority in all the committees, although it intends to be granted the chairmanship of the most important ones, those of governance, which will be the only ones to be convened during the extraordinary sessions: Budget, General Legislation, Constitutional Affairs and the Legislative Procedure for DNUs (bicameral). Menem fantasizes about starting to work next week, but the opposition doubts it: to some of them, he has barely answered the phone.

Engineered famine. I really have no words anymore.

@carpoftruth@hexbear.net, in relation to your comment on rare earth extraction and how it's not necessary that complicated as it's mainly know-how about chemical engineering, there's this article from this September. Not sure if you have any thoughts

Chinese scientists make key breakthroughs in rare earth mining

A team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences reveled major breakthroughs in rare earth mining on a meeting on Sunday. The discoveries will helpshorten mining time by about 70 percent, reduce the impurity content by 70 percent and increases the recovery rate of rare earths by about 30 percent.

The findings were made by He Hongping's team from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. They presented the research results at a scientific evaluation meeting in Meizhou City, South China's Guangdong Province.

This new mining technology is mainly applied to the mining of weathered crust rare earth ores, a characteristic resource in China. It aims to solve the problems of present in-situ leaching technology in ecology, resource efficiency, and to promote efficient and green utilization of rare earth resources in China.

Professor He's team creatively developed a new way of using electric currents to extract rare earth elements (REEs), compared to traditional methods which uses ammonium chloride as leaching agents to extract REEs. The new technology is more environmental friendly as it avoids soil contamination caused by leaching agents, which responded to Chinese government's demand for environmental protection and green and efficient mining.

With a 5,000-ton earth-moving scale demonstration area, professor He's team was able to test his findings on soil and achieved design outcomes on the ground. This key technology and its results have helped He's team publish 11 high-level papers in journals such as Nature Sustainability, and to obtain 7 patents for inventions. Citing a report from Nature Sustainability, Anouk Borst, a geologist at KU Leuven called the strategy "A game changer, providing that it is feasible on a large scale."

At the evaluation meeting, experts of the Evaluation Committee listened to the report of the He's team, reviewed the relevant information and visited the demonstration site. After discussion and deliberation, the Evaluation Committee unanimously agreed that He's finding is a World-Class technology.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/China-Bans-Exports-of-Rare-Earth-Tech-as-Critical-Minerals-Race-Heats-Up.html

Note this is a technology export ban, not rare earths export ban. A common phrase is that rare earths are not rare and that is correct, but China does a lot of rare earth mining and the vast majority of the world's refining. Refining of these minerals is quite high tech as far as mineral processing/metallurgy goes because rare earths are all quite similar and so are hard to separate. It is also hard to refine them to be sufficiently pure for the high tech applications they are used in. I suspect that western onshoring of rare earth tech is harder than people expect. there is little institutional memory and skills for these topics in the west after decades of outsourcing and also because the rare earth refining needs have changed over the past decades to reflect advances in technology.

just caught a blip of the BBC world service on the radio describing their upcoming progrmming: "as war continues in south sudan, we talk to an american senator about how to resolve the conflict"

or something like that. It was really blatant

Europe will be on the brink of total economic collapse and total right wing electoral victory and the European "left" will still be insisting that real clintonism has never been tried.

When you got tired of losing to Russians and want to lose to Hamas as well: https://nitter.cz/talhaahmad967/status/1737242405135593756

Hamas has infiltrated my bathroom and just clogged my toilet. Does anyone have a recommendation for a reliable precision strike plunger? I don’t like use an auger because it takes forever to clean. I saw something called a “ToiletShroom” which is basically a pseudo-auger that’s easier to clean, but it breaks easily. I’ve seen recommendations for a plunger called the Konky Beehive but i don’t know if it’s shills or actually good.

Player tip: 99% of neocolonial powers stop shelling insurgencies right before they're finally demoralized, surrender unconditionally and accept the puppet government. 8 more years of bombing Yemen and we'll get a second democracy in the middle east.

Anyone have the video of Yemeni fighters capturing that vessel and dancing with the crew or whatever?

Argentines Reject President Milei's Economic Deregulation

Through a decree, the far-right politician reformed over 300 laws to establish "the foundations for the reconstruction of the Argentine economy."

On Wednesday night, thousands of Argentinians protested against the state downsizing policies, privatization of public assets, and economic deregulation proposed by President Javier Milei.

Through an "urgent" decree, Milei reformed over 300 laws to establish "the foundations for the reconstruction of the Argentine economy."

Among other things, his decree transforms all state-owned enterprises into anonymous societies for subsequent privatization, repeals the rental law, authorizes the total or partial transfer of the shareholding of Aerolineas Argentinas, and prohibits setting limits on exports.

The decree also includes other measures aimed directly at deregulating economic activity. These include the repeal of the Supply Law, which imposes sanctions on companies in cases of shortages of certain products, and the repeal of the Shelves Law, which obliges supermarkets to offer a minimum of products manufactured by small businesses.

Protest calls spread rapidly after the national broadcast through which the far-right President announced his package of economic policies. Citizens gathered in the vicinity of the Congress to continue the protest that thousands had carried out hours earlier, marching through the streets of downtown Buenos Aires to Mayo Square in front of the Presidential headquarters.

The nighttime mobilization was also felt in various neighborhoods of the capital, where residents staged a loud protest from their windows and balconies by banging pots and other household items. The protest action was heard in neighborhoods such as Caballito, Almagro, and Avellaneda, but also in middle and upper-class areas such as Palermo and Belgrano.

"Milei subverts the democratic republican order and disrupts the division of powers. His unconstitutionality is evident. We will not tolerate an attack on social security and labor and social rights," said Hector Daer, the secretary of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT).

https://web.archive.org/web/20231221143809/https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-begins-flying-migrants-to-sanctuary-cities-with-first-flight-to-chicago

The move from Abbott is an escalation from the strategy in place since April 2022 when he began bussing migrants first to Washington, D.C., and later expanded it to include other cities with "sanctuary" policies that forbid or limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Abbott’s office said this week that the state has bussed over 82,900 migrants to cities, including Washington, D.C.; New York City; Chicago; Philadelphia; Denver; and Los Angeles. Abbott has said the operation provides "vital relief" to border towns and has promised to keep doing it "until Biden secures the border."

Critics have accused Abbott of performing an "illegal" political stunt, with the mayors of Chicago and New York in particular excoriating Abbott for the buses. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson this week accused Abbott of creating chaos across the country.

If Venezuela and Brazil invaded Argentina that would be pretty cool and neat.

Orban continues to block the $50b over 4 year ukraine aid package from the EU. Hungary is up for $10-20b of eubux, so he wants that and the EU wants him to stay in line. A lot of euro seething in this one but not that interesting, continuation of big question marks for who is going to pony up the bux for project ukraine.

https://archive.is/GCgzD

"What we have always desired from day 1, is a direct war between us and the Americans & Israelis, not through their silly proxies.": https://nitter.cz/AryJeay/status/1737466205076599043

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/12/14/a-master-of-terror/

Prabowo first arrived in East Timor in 1976 soon after the invasion. He commanded the unit that captured and then killed East Timor’s legendary first prime minister, Nicolau Lobato, in 1978. Lobato’s body was paraded before the Indonesian and Western press, and to this day his souvenired severed head has not been returned to Timor for burial.

In 1983, Prabowo bypassed a superior officer and undermined a peace process underway between a moderate Indonesian military, and then resistance leader, now Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. He is also the subject of accusations that same year of commanding massacres of as many as 200 civilians, mainly men, in the southern village of Kraras, an area now known as “The Valley of Widows.”

In 1985 Prabowo attended the commando training course in the U.S. at Fort Benning, the notorious U.S. Army’s “School of the Americas.”

Anybody have a link to that classic video montage of Xi waving during a parade with news clips over top of him about China eliminating poverty and the bloomer at the end? Need it for a friend.

the souls of the revolutionaries live on in each of us that stands for the liberty of all, lenin is with you

Danish media is reporting that shipping company Mærsk has announced that they are preparing to resume operations in the Red Sea. According to reports the announcement has been made after the United States started the cartoonishly villanously named "Operation Prosperity Guardian" to help maritime traffic break Yemeni sanctions on the illegal zionist entity.