Made a few calls to my family in Lebanon today just to gauge how people are feeling about possible escalation. The situation is definitely tense, my aunt for example bought lots of rice and other dry foods today in case there's some mass bombing of Beirut and we get Gazafied by the Zionists. My communist uncle is still on team nothing ever happens, although I did sense some rare dread from him for the first time since October 7th. His take on the situation was basically "I hope nothing happens for the good of the people here, but I hope something happens because the Zionist fucks deserve a major slap", which shows the dilemma that Hezbollah and the rest of the resistance is facing right now. I have a cousin that works in an office in the South, and everyone was told to chill at home for the next week in case something happens. Another cousin works at an international company in Beirut that has offices in Dubai and a few other places, and the EU passport holders at her company have started to leave for either Dubai or back to Europe because some of them got emails from the head office telling them that embassies have reached out and told them to start evacuating. I'm still leaning towards nothing significant happening, but I'm more worried now honestly.

Free Palestine is Coming. Ned Stark declares for Palestine and rallies his banners to march on Zionist strongholds

"Without hunger and thirst among the Gazan population, we will not be able to recruit collaborators, we will not be able to recruit intelligence, we will not be able to bribe people, with food, drink, medicine, in order to obtain intelligence" - Israeli Knesset MK Tally Gotliv

Nitter

New Slammer

i think thats it , i think we reched maximum cope

IMMENSE shoutout and uncritical support to the person who covered the Israeli propaganda “missing people” posters around the corner from my apartment with posters of missing people actually in our area. Genuinely incredible and simple idea that I want to see Zionists get mad about

Bringing in the New Year with a bang:

UPA Corporal Roman Shukhevych Museum destroyed by Shahed Drone on Bandera's Birthday

Now you might ask: who was UPA Corporal Roman Shukhevych, this man who was awarded the Hero of Ukraine in 2007, who has a museum, statues, stadia and streets named after him in Ukraine and Canada?

He collaborated with the Nazis from February 1941 to December 1942 as commanding officer of the Nachtigall Battalion in early 1941,[2] and as a Hauptmann of the German Schutzmannschaft 201 auxiliary police battalion in late 1941 and 1942.[3] Shukhevych was one of the perpetrators of the Galicia-Volhynia massacres of tens of thousands of Polish civilians.[3] It is unclear to what extent Shuchevych was responsible for the massacres of Poles in Volhynia, but he certainly condoned them after some time, and also directed the massacres of Poles in Eastern Galicia.[4][5]

Remember, if you think Naziism is alive and well in modern day Ukraine you're a Putinist stooge.

It is wild to have the entire world microchip industry on a contested island

In communist North Korea the crazy regime puts a ridiculous number of medals on their generals.

Illustration: Unrelated image of Danish court bureaucrat

New ‘Storm the Capitol’ board game celebrates Jan 6 riot - Independent

A brand new board game is being released this weekend to mark the three year anniversary of the January 6 Capitol riots in Washington DC.

The right-wing podcast TrueAnon has created the game “Storm the Capitol – TrueAnon Edition” where players can “relive one of the funniest days in American history!”

Despite the day not being particularly funny for the Capitol staff and law enforcement officers who were faced with an angry mob of far-right activists and Donald Trump supporters seeking to overturn American democracy, the game celebrates the violence of the day – with players able to pretend they are “battling” their way through the Capitol building.

Players can gain points by stealing “AOC’s shoes” or “Pelosi’s laptop”.

At the end of the game, if the “Patriots” win, former president Donald Trump will be waiting to take them in his helicopter to change the results of the 2020 election, according to the game.

If the police win, President Joe Biden will be victorious.

The podcast hosts wrote on X that they hope the game will bring back the “amazing feeling” felt on 6 January 2021.

Is it gonna happen? Is it not gonna happen? All I know is that whenever Hexbear predicts WWIII, it ends up being two border guards calling each other poopy heads, and whenever Hexbear predicts nothing happening, a major regional war breaks out

When Sankara and Mao spoke about how important it was for Communists to educate others, no matter how difficult it was to get through to them, they failed to consider liberals in the 2020s.

Milei said that he is currently the main enemy of the "Communist International".

another one of those historical moments where you feel like you're riiiight at the top of a rollercoaster, about to plunge unstoppably

Zionists now have mental breakdowns from watermelons after spending two months trying to claim that they're Israeli inventions.

" Niger decides to nationalize its water sector, terminates contract with French company

This decision follows the adoption by the transitional cabinet of a draft decree establishing the statutes of the new state-owned company, called "la Nigérienne des Eaux".

The lease contract of the French company Veolia and its subsidiary Société d'Exploitation des Eaux du Niger (SEEN) expired on December 31. After over 22 years of partnership, Nigérienne des Eaux is taking over from SEEN to ensure the operation, production and distribution of drinking water across the West African country's urban and semi-urban centers.

The purpose of this draft decree is therefore to meet this requirement, and to provide Nigérienne des Eaux with the organizational and operating rules it needs to carry out its missions."

https://t.me/sputnik_africa/12011

steel manufacturing machine broke (archived)

> To Build Ships That Break Ice, U.S. Must Relearn to Cut Steel

The science-focused Healy medium icebreaker, which is normally assigned to the Arctic, has to undergo repairs and refitting annually in California or Washington. The other, the heavy icebreaker Polar Star, is nearing the end of its useful service life. By comparison, Russia has three dozen national icebreakers suitable for the Arctic, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, and China has four, including two icebreaking research ships that regularly appear at high latitudes. U.S. officials suspect those have strategic purposes. Beijing says science is driving its Arctic ambitions.

“We need to increase the presence of our Navy and Coast Guard in the Arctic and improve our deterrence in the Pacific,” said Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Without a monumental investment in our shipyards and defense industrial base, we will not be able to secure American dominance in the maritime domain.”

damn, so you need an actual industrial base in order to have stuff ? never knew that before, I thought you just pressed a button and alchemically transformed your GDP into equipment

The machinery and skills to build the hulls of most oceangoing vessels aren’t sufficient for the specialized icebreakers. The hull plates need a bespoke alloy and specialized heat-treatment, with a process to form and weld massive curved plates. ... In addition to the technical challenge, American yards are reckoning with a shortage of shipwrights. Employment in ship and boat building totaled just 154,800 in July after peaking at 1.3 million during World War II, according to data from the Federal Reserve.

turns out, de-industrializing means it will be even more difficult to re-industrialize in the future, since you'll have lost a lot of the workers and institutional knowledge you need for that, because, you know, it's the workers who actually make stuff

The U.S. government identified the need for half a dozen new polar vessels as far back as 2010. Two years later, the Coast Guard launched a program to acquire them. ... Under a joint Coast Guard-Navy program in 2017, Bollinger Shipyards and Halter Marine won contracts for preliminary designs for the new icebreakers. In 2019, Halter Marine won the contract for the polar security cutters, but the pandemic and other delays have slowed design and engineering work and prevented the start of construction. “When Covid hit, all of our suppliers were overseas,” Merchent said. ... In 2022, as Russian President Vladimir Putin launched two giant icebreakers in St. Petersburg, Halter Marine was finally supposed to start construction of the first new icebreaker, to be christened the Polar Sentinel. Instead the company, which was owned by a state-owned Singaporean firm with Chinese clients, was sold to Bollinger. The U.S. icebreakers needed a bigger company with more resources to complete the design work and begin working with the steel, according to people familiar with the program.

Only in August did Bollinger begin testing, cutting and assembling steel prototype modules that could become part of the Polar Sentinel—if the modules meet rigorous tests. Meanwhile, the company will continue recruiting and training more shipyard workers. Full construction could begin next year. “We’re relearning how to build this type of ship,” said the polar security cutter program manager, Coast Guard Capt. Eric Drey.

love taking 13 years to even start working on a thing I supposedly really need. Who knows when they'll even deliver a finished ship, 2050?

Monthly Review: How Yemen changed everything

Some anti-doomer medicine courtesy of Pepe Escobar.

Whether invented in northern India, eastern China or Central Asia—from Persia to Turkestan—chess is an Asian game. In chess, there always comes a time when a simple pawn is able to upset the whole chessboard, usually via a move in the back rank whose effect simply cannot be calculated. Yes, a pawn can impose a seismic checkmate. That’s where we are, geopolitically, right now.

The cascading effects of a single move on the chessboard—Yemen’s Ansarallah stunning and carefully targeted blockade of the Red Sea—reach way beyond global shipping, supply chains, and The War of Economic Corridors. Not to mention the reduction of the much lauded U.S. Navy force projection to irrelevancy.

Yemen’s resistance movement, Ansarallah, has made it very clear that any Israel-affiliated or Israel-destined vessel will be intercepted. While the west bristles at this, and imagines itself a target, the rest of the world fully understands that all other shipping is free to pass. Russian tankers—as well as Chinese, Iranian, and Global South ships — continue to move undisturbed across the Bab al-Mandeb (narrowest point: 33 km) and the Red Sea.

Only the Hegemon is disturbed by this challenge to its ‘rules-based order.’ It is outraged that western vessels delivering energy or goods to law-breaking Israel can be impeded, and that the supply chain has been severed and plunged into deep crisis. The pinpointed target is the Israeli economy, which is already bleeding heavily. A single Yemeni move proves to be more efficient than a torrent of imperial sanctions. It is the tantalizing possibility of this single move turning into a paradigm shift—with no return—that is adding to the Hegemon’s apoplexy. Especially because imperial humiliation is deeply embedded in the paradigm shift.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the record, is now sending an unmistakeable message: Forget the Suez Canal. The way to go is the Northern Sea Route—which the Chinese, in the framework of the Russia-China strategic partnership, call the Arctic Silk Road. For the dumbfounded Europeans, the Russians have detailed three options: First, sail 15,000 miles around the Cap of Good Hope. Second, use Russia’s cheaper and faster Northern Sea Route. Third, send the cargo via Russian Railways. Rosatom, which oversees the Northern Sea Route, has emphasized that non-ice-class ships are now able to sail throughout summer and autumn, and year-round navigation will soon be possible with the help of a fleet of nuclear icebreakers. All that as direct consequences of the single Yemeni move. What next? Yemen entering BRICS+ at the summit in Kazan in late 2024, under the Russian presidency?

The new architecture will be framed in West Asia

The U.S.-led Armada put together for Operation Genocide Protection, which collapsed even before birth, may have been set up to “warn Iran,” apart from giving Ansarallah a scare. Just as the Houthis, Tehran is hardly intimidated because, as West Asia analyst ace Alastair Crooke succinctly put it: "Sykes-Picot is dead." This is a quantum shift on the chessboard. It means West Asian powers will frame the new regional architecture from now on, not U.S. Navy “projection.” That carries an ineffable corollary: those eleven U.S. aircraft carrier task forces, for all practical purposes, are essentially worthless.

Everyone across West Asia is well aware that Ansarallah’s missiles are capable of hitting Saudi and Emirati oil fields, and knocking them out of commission. So it is little wonder that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi would never accept becoming part of a U.S.-led maritime force to challenge the Yemeni resistance.

Add to it the role of underwater drones now in the possession of Russia and Iran. Think of fifty of these aimed at a U.S. aircraft carrier: it has no defense. While the Americans still have very advanced submarines, they cannot keep the Bab al-Mandeb and Red Sea open to western operators. On the energy front, Moscow and Tehran don’t even need to think—at least not yet—about using the “nuclear” option or cutting off potentially at least 25 percent, and up, of the world oil supply. As one Persian Gulf analyst succinctly describes it, "that would irretrievably implode the international financial system."

For those still determined to support the genocide in Gaza there have been warnings. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has mentioned it explicitly. Tehran has already called for a total oil and gas embargo against nations that support Israel. A total naval blockade of Israel, meticulously engineered, remains a distinct possibility. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Hossein Salami said Israel may “soon face the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, and other waterways.” Keep in mind we’re not yet even talking about a possible blockade of the Strait of Hormuz; we’re still on Red Sea/Bab al-Mandeb.

Because if the Straussian neo-cons in the Beltway get really unhinged by the paradigm shift and act in desperation to “teach a lesson” to Iran, a chokepoint Hormuz-Bab al-Mandeb combo blockade might skyrocket the price of oil to at least $500 a barrel, triggering the implosion of the $618 trillion derivatives market and crashing the entire international banking system.

The paper tiger is in a jam

Mao Zedong was right after all: the U.S. may be in fact a paper tiger. Putin, though, is way more careful, cold, and calculating. With this Russian president, it’s all about an asymmetric response, exactly when no one is expecting it. That brings us to the prime working hypothesis perhaps capable of explaining the shadow play masking the single Ansarallah move on the chessboard.

When Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Sy (Seymour) Hersh proved how Team Biden blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, there was no Russian response to what was, in effect, an act of terrorism against Gazprom, against Germany, against the EU, and against a bunch of European companies. Yet Yemen, now, with a simple blockade, turns global shipping upside down. So what is more vulnerable? The physical networks of global energy supply (Pipelineistan) or the Thalassocracy, states that derive their power from naval supremacy? Russia privileges Pipelineistan: see, for instance, the Nord Streams and Power of Siberia 1 and 2. But the U.S., the Hegemon, always relied on its thalassocratic power, heir to “Britannia rules the waves.”

Well, not anymore. And, surprisingly, getting there did not even entail the “nuclear” option, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which Washington games and scaremongers like crazy. Of course we won’t have a smoking gun. But it’s a fascinating proposition that the single Yemeni move may have been coordinated at the highest level between three BRICS members—Russia, China, and Iran, the neocon new “axis of evil”—plus other two BRICS+, energy powerhouses Saudi Arabia and the UAE. As in, “if you do it, we’ve got your back”. None of that, of course, detracts from Yemeni purity: their defense of Palestine is a sacred duty.

Western imperialism and then turbo-capitalism have always been obsessed with gobbling up Yemen, a process that Isa Blumi, in his splendid book Destroying Yemen, described as “necessarily stripping Yemenis of their historic role as the economic, cultural, spiritual, and political engine for much of the Indian Ocean world.” Yemen, though, is unconquerable and, true to a local proverb, “deadly” (Yemen Fataakah). As part of the Axis of Resistance, Yemen’s Ansarallah is now a key actor in a complex Eurasia-wide drama that redefines Heartland connectivity; and alongside China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the India-Iran-Russia-led International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), and Russia’s new Northern Sea Route, also includes control over strategic chokepoints around the Mediterranean Seas and the Arabian peninsula.

This is another trade connectivity paradigm entirely, smashing to bits western colonial and neocolonial control of Afro-Eurasia. So yes, BRICS+ supports Yemen, who with a single move has presented Pax Americana with The Mother of All Geopolitical Jams.

Multiple casualties reported in Baghdad following US airstrikes on the PMU headquarters at the Iraqi Interior Ministry complex.

Commander of the 12th Brigade in the Al-Nujaba Movement, Abu Taqwa al-Saidi, was assassinated in a drone strike on the PMU headquarters in the center of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

https://t.me/thecradlemedia/11399

Confidence in U.S. Institutions Down; Average at New Low - 5 July 2022

Truly a sign of a well-functioning government where only 7% of Americans trust Congress a "great deal," 14% the criminal justice system, 25% the Supreme Court, and (somehow) 45% the police and 64% the military. In other countries, we call that a military junta.

The content from other websites that get posted here regarding Mainland China and Taiwan are repulsive. I am Taiwanese and seeing the way they talk about people in East Asia is disgusting. They think we are all interchangeable with no differences between each other.

How Yemen is blocking US hegemony in West Asia

Given the renewed focus on Yemen's de facto government led by Ansarallah and its armed forces, it is time to move beyond the simplistic and dismissive characterization of the Houthis as merely a ‘rebel’ group or a non-state actor. Since the start of the war by the Saudi-led coalition against Ansarallah in 2015, the Yemeni resistance movement has transformed into a formidable military force that has not only humbled Saudi Arabia but is also now challenging Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza as well as the superior firepower and resources of the US Navy in the world’s most important waterway.

...

To date, Ansarallah has successfully targeted nine ships using drones and missiles, and managed to seize one Israeli-affiliated ship in the Red Sea, according to their official statements. These operations have prompted the largest international shipping companies, including CMA CGM and MSC, and oil giants BP and Evergreen, to re-route their Europe bound ships around the horn of Africa, adding 13,000km and significant fuel costs to the journey. Delays, transit times, and insurance fees for commercial shipping have skyrocketed, threatening to spark inflation worldwide. This is especially worrisome for Israel, which is already contending with the economic repercussions of its longest and deadliest conflict with the Palestinian resistance in history. Additionally, Ansarallah has launched multiple missile and drone attacks on Israel’s southern port city of Eilat, decreasing its commercial shipping traffic by 85 percent.

The disruption in the Red Sea directly undermines a key element of the White House’s 2022 National Security Strategy, which unequivocally states that the US will not permit any nation “to jeopardize freedom of navigation through the Middle East’s waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab.”

...

The Pentagon plans to defend commercial ships using missile defense systems on US and allied naval carriers deployed to the region. But the world’s superpower, now largely on its own, does not have the military capacity to counter attacks from war-torn Yemen, the poorest country in West Asia. This is because the US relies on expensive and difficult to manufacture interceptor missiles to counter the inexpensive and mass-produced drones and missiles that Ansarallah possesses.

...

If Ansarallah persists with this strategy, US forces will quickly deplete their interceptor missile stocks, which are needed not only in West Asia but in East Asia as well. As Fortis Analysis observed, the US has eight guided missile cruisers and destroyers operating in the Mediterranean and Red Seas, with a total of 800 SM-2 and SM-6 interceptor missiles for ship defense between them. Fortis Analysis further notes that production of these missiles is slow, meaning any ongoing campaign to counter Ansarallah will quickly deplete US interceptor missile stocks to dangerously low levels. Meanwhile, the US weapons manufacturer Raytheon can produce less than 50 SM-2 and fewer than 200 SM-6 missiles annually.

If these stocks are diminished, this leaves the US Navy vulnerable not only in the Red Sea and Mediterranean, where Russia is also active, but also in the Pacific Ocean, where China poses a significant threat with its hypersonic and ballistic missiles. Fortis Analysis concludes by observing that the longer Ansarallah continues “throwing potshots” at commercial, US Navy, and allied maritime assets, “the worse the calculus gets. Supply chains win wars – and we are losing this critical domain.”

...

As a result, Abdulghani al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, described the situation in Yemen as a case where technology acts as a “great equalizer.” “Your F-15 that costs millions of dollars means nothing because I have my drone that cost a few thousand dollars that will do just as much damage,” he told the New York Times.

If you shoot down a $2000 drone with an air defense missile, then in actuality, your air defense missile was shot down by a drone.

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2024-01-05-the-a-team-lawyers-representing-south-africa-at-the-world-court-against-israel/

This is being taken very seriously by South Africa. An A team of lawyers if you will. If the case against Israel is dismissed, it will be on record, on paper and ink, that the international "rules based order" is worthless. The precedent of either charging Israel, or making a purely political decisions and ignoring all the evidence against Israel, will bring about change in international politics.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/03/middleeast/iran-explosions-soleimani-ceremony-intl/index.html

Twin terror attacks in Iran.  

At least 103 people were killed Wednesday and 188 injured in the Iranian city of Kerman after twin blasts near the burial site of slain military commander Qasem Soleimani, in what officials called a terror attack.

The blasts, at least one of which was caused by a bomb, state TV said, came on the fourth anniversary of Soleimani’s death in a US air strike, and threatens to accelerate tensions in the region that have spiked since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The first explosion was 2,300 feet (700 meters) from Soleimani’s grave, and the second was 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) away as pilgrims visited the site, IRNA added.

Soleimani was killed by a US airstrike ordered by former President Donald Trump at Baghdad International Airport four years ago Wednesday.

Yemen invoking better than egypt by effectively closing the suez canal

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iraq-prepares-close-down-us-led-coalitions-mission-pm-statement-2024-01-05/

Iraq prepares to close down U.S-led coalition's mission - PM statement

"China's army dwarfs Taiwan's. Could 3.3 million 'civilian warriors' give it a fighting chance?"

Tech tycoon Mr Tsao is the founder of United Microelectronics Corp, one of the largest producers of semiconductor chips in the world, but he has an unexpected history for someone throwing so much money at the war effort.

His family moved to Taiwan around the time Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) forces took control after World War II.

The Taiwan he grew up in was ruled under martial law by dictator Chiang Kai-shek, who led a brutal crackdown on his communist opponents over decades that are now known as the White Terror period.

Chiang Kai-shek's regime killed thousands, but his statues are still standing

"Later I realised the KMT was right about the Communist Party and how brutal and barbarous it is," Mr Tsao told the Financial Times in 2022.

After finishing his studies at National Taiwan University, Mr Tsao joined the government's Industrial Technology Research Institute, which gave rise to Taiwan's booming semiconductor industry.

Mr Tsao founded his own company, UMC, in 1980, and expanded as China began to open up in the 1990s.

He began investing his riches in an impressive rare art collection, including a glass vase from the Qianlong period worth more than $39 million.

After Mr Tsao and a fellow UMC executive were indicted in Taiwan over alleged illegal investments to set up production lines in China, he renounced his Taiwanese citizenship and moved to Singapore.

He was an active supporter of so-called peaceful "reunification", even taking out ads in major Taiwanese newspapers calling for a referendum on the matter.

But last year he reapplied for his Taiwanese citizenship, explaining that he had had a change of heart after witnessing Beijing's crackdown on Hong Kong.

"It showed the true face of the Chinese Communist Party, a hooligan regime conducting violence against ordinary people," he told the Taipei Times.

"It really made me angry. So I decided to never go to China, Hong Kong or Macau again."

He told Radio Free Asia he wanted to die in Taiwan, ideally "laughing while watching the fall of the CCP".

KMT good radio free asia 3.3 million civilian combatants i am trash man

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-intelligence-confirms-islamic-states-afghanistan-branch-behind-iran-blasts-2024-01-05/

Exclusive: US intelligence confirms Islamic State's Afghanistan branch behind Iran blasts -sources

Reuters is in general way way way less insufferable than the likes of BBC or something, but articles like this are just downright hilarious. don't worry folks - America says it definitely wasn't't them or Isn'treal, it was ISIS and the evidence was "indisputable"! carry on

DPRK opened fire with over 100 artillery shells against South Korean occupied Yeonpeong Island, no casualties have been announced

Not sure what the plan was here but it sure is provocative. Are they drawing the eye of Sauron towards themselves to further distract and spread out the US?

Looking forward to the NGO "democracy rankings" after Ukraine literally stops holding elections.

The "freedom" ones already have Ukraine far higher than Russia, amusingly.

One of the most annoying NATO guys on Twitter accidentally praised the ISIS attack on Iran because they assumed Israel was behind it, lol

How U.S. Customs shattered Chinese female PhD students' American Dream

Truly the land of gender and racial equality out there.

The IOF has targeted so many of our soccer players over the years that they had to form an amputee team and eventually a whole league. they just assassinated the man who formed the first team: https://nitter.cz/SamaanAshrawi/status/1742644725469909284