we do a little tomfoolery

https://youtu.be/f7oPZ3hmCiQ?si=nKQPMPbTcuSRoKSB

Break through news - Lebanon, Israel's Vietnam

Scheer Post: Iraq ‘Heads Towards’ Ending US Military Presence

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said his government is “heading towards” ending the presence of international forces in Iraq, which includes about 2,500 US troops, the largest foreign contingent.

Al-Sudani’s comments came after his government strongly condemned several rounds of US airstrikes in Iraq as a violation of sovereignty and a hostile act. In the latest strikes, the US said it targeted the Shia militia Kataib Hezbollah in retaliation for an attack on a US base, but al-Sudani’s government said civilians were also wounded in the US bombing.

“We are in the process of rearranging the relationship with the international coalition, as in light of the presence of capable Iraqi forces, the Iraqi government is moving towards ending the presence of the international coalition forces,” al-Sudani said at a press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Spain has 300 troops stationed in Iraq as part of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition. “My country, always at the request of the Iraqi authorities, will support the unity, sovereignty and stability of Iraq,” Sanchez said at the press conference.

Al-Sudani first came into office at the end of 2022 and made his first public comments on US troops in Iraq in 2023, when he expressed support for the presence of foreign forces. But he’s been under increasing pressure to get them out, especially now as Iraq has become a battleground between Shia militias and the US due to President BIden’s full-throated support for Israel’s Gaza onslaught.

The US has been resisting Iraqi efforts to expel its forces from the country since 2020 when a US drone strike in Baghdad killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. In the wake of the killings, Iraq’s parliament voted to expel foreign forces, but the US refused to leave. The US formally changed its presence in Iraq from a combat role to an advisory one in December 2021, but it did not withdraw any troops at the time.

If al-Sudani tries to expel foreign forces from his country, Washington could make things difficult for him. The US has leverage over Iraq because, since the 2003 invasion, the country’s foreign reserves have been held by the US Federal Reserve, giving Washington control over Baghdad’s dollar supply and the ability to devalue the Iraqi dinar. The US also keeps tight control over Iraq’s ability to pay its neighbor Iran for much-needed electricity.

Naked Capitalism: Russian Trade Corridors Flourish Under Western Sanctions

TLDR:

• Russian sea exports are up 7.8% despite all the efforts by the West to shut down Russian shipping as much as possible.
• Both Russia and China are taking the Arctic very seriously, as it's both faster than the Suez route and also safer from strait blockades. The US is trying to take it seriously and are putting military bases in their newfound colonial possessions in Finland and Sweden that NATO just conquered militarily, but they kinda need like, ships, and building those ships kinda sucks and is hard, and they'd rather be inflating housing bubbles and creating cryptocurrency farms.
• Black Sea shipping has increased despite Ukrainian... I don't even think "pressure" is the right word, they're more like pinpricks. NATO wants to get into the Black Sea but Turkiye isn't interested in all the headaches and potential incidents that might cause.
• Caspian Sea shipping is up too, as it's right in the middle of a bunch of routes, including the INTSC, which connects St Petersburg to Iran and then India. There are problems to overcome here, both in terms of building infrastructure in very challenging conditions, as well as Western sanctions and meddling in the Caucuses.
• Greece has been selling its tankers to shady companies that are transporting Russian oil as that's what's profitable now, and that the US seems totally unable to accept that it isn't actually needed in the global trade system as some high and mighty arbiter, and that other countries can, in fact, do things perfectly well without their corporations.

Quite an interesting article; it goes over the Baltic + Arctic route; the Black Sea route; the Caspian route; and the Pacific route.

For the Baltic Sea leading into the Arctic, cargo turnover at their Baltic seaports has increased by 2.5%, mainly due to oil exports to China surging fivefold since 2019 to 10.4 million barrels in summer 2023, though most Russian oil going to China still moves via the Suez Canal. As has been discussed before in these megathreads, China and Russia really don't wanna rely on these straits given the potential chaos that could be unleashed there; luckily right now it's by a force friendly to them (Yemen), but in the future it could be a more unfriendly force.

It's worth noting that the Arctic route is about 33% shorter than the Suez route, provided ice and bad weather doesn't slow things down. Russia is building up its fleet of icebreakers - it wants to build more than 50 icebreakers and ice-class vessels, ports, and terminals over the next 13 years. And obviously climate change will do its part to help clear the ice out of the way. Additionally, Russia wants to send its natural gas towards Asia now instead of Europe given that Nord Stream is... experiencing technical difficulties, and they're building facilities up for that.

The imperial core is seeking to expand its foothold in the Arctic via Norway, Finland, and Sweden, as well as Greenland and Alaska, to try and counter all of this. The EU has also floated the idea of stopping Russian ships in the Baltic. The US has a grand total of two old icebreakers which constantly need maintenance, so not exactly a fearsome force. Never fear, though - the US is building new ones, with the first set to be ready in... 2028. Russia has over 30 icebreakers and China is also getting started on construction, with 4 icebreakers so far.

Meanwhile, Black Sea trade is up 17% despite Ukraine's very impressive and epic drone strikes on Crimea. While Turkiye continues to stop NATO from entering the Black Sea, there's not really a ton they can actually do beyond denunciations. They're trying to enlarge their presence by trying to establish a mine-clearing force that would be a trojan horse, letting NATO naval assets into the sea, but everybody can see right through this and nobody is fooled by the language of it being a "peaceful" effort. Turkiye still doesn't appear to want much to do with this and Russia increased its aerial presence over the Black Sea with jets armed with hypersonic missiles, serving the dual purpose of dissuading NATO in the Black Sea and also off the coast of Israel, just in case the US tries to do something funny with all the ships they have concentrated there.

The Caspian Sea is a transit point for the INSTC and trade grew by 36% last year. The INSTC connects St Petersburg all the way down to the Caspian Sea and then into Iran and the Persian Gulf, ending at India's Mumbai. Several other important routes go through the region too which connect various Central Asian countries together. It was kind of dead for a while but the US's pressure on Russia and Iran in the last couple years has greatly renewed interest in it, especially as it also bypasses the Suez Canal. The US has been trying to fuck this up again and has had some success, though sanctions just don't have the same kick that they used to. Instead, the issues appear to be mostly internal - if you've looked at a map of Iran, you can see that going north-south kinda fucking sucks due to the mountain ranges, and west-east is considerably easier. Russia and Iran are working on these problems.

Russia's Pacific ports, with the main one being Vladivostok, has seen renewed interest as they're along the Arctic route. China is boosting trade routes to these ports, and Russia is having more interest in developing their far east due to Western pressure.

Hilariously, after several Greek shipping companies promised to stop shipping Russian oil after getting warned by the US, they're just selling the ships. Greece sold 97 tankers in 2023. Companies in the UAE, China, India, and Turkiye have bought these ships, and nearly a thousand maritime companies have been created with an association with Russia in 2022. The US response behind closed doors, I like to imagine, has been "Hey, what the fuck? You can't do that! That's not how that should work! We created this global system of trading and you inferior motherfuckers can't just do all this shipping and insurance without us! WE HAVE FINANCIAL HEGEMONY!!!"

Brazilian politician's move to investigate a priest sparks outpouring of support for the clergyman

A right-wing Brazilian politician’s push to have the Sao Paulo government investigate a city priest has prompted a strong defense from Roman Catholic leaders and government leaders who praised the clergyman's work with the homeless.

The Rev. Júlio Lancellotti, 75, ministers to the homeless in one of the roughest neighborhoods of Brazil's largest city, a crime and drug-ridden area of Sao Paulo commonly known as Crackland.

But Sao Paulo council member Rubinho Nunes alleges the priest also illegally works on behalf of an unnamed non-profit organization to promote Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — an allegation Lancellotti denies.

Nunes needs the votes of a majority of the 55-member council in two votes to launch the probe and gathered the support of 24 of his colleagues as of this week, ahead of their next session in February.

But the effort has now drawn vocal pushback from the Roman Catholic archdiocese, Lula's administration and celebrities — and four of those council members had withdrawn their support by Thursday.

The archdiocese said in a statement late Wednesday that it was perplexed that Lancellotti's behavior was being “put in doubt." It said his “merciful work for the poorest and most suffering people in our society” must continue.

Lancellotti, who has been an outspoken supporter of Lula, separately defended his work as a “pastoral action” of the archdiocese and said he does not belong to any non-profit organization.

Brazil is scheduled to hold nationwide mayoral elections this year. Allies of Lula and those of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro are expected to square off in many of the country’s 5,565 cities, with Sao Paulo as the biggest prize.

Lula came out in defense of Lancellotti on Thursday on social media channels, in which the president posted a picture of himself being kissed on the forehead by the priest during a visit last year.

“Thank God we have people like Father Júlio in Sao Paulo. For many, many years he has dedicated his life to giving some dignity, respect and citizenship to people on the streets,” Lula said. “He dedicates his life to following Jesus’ example."

Many celebrities in Brazil also joined the opposition to the investigation on social media and urged people to donate to Lancellotti’s initiatives. They started the hashtag ” #Padre_Júlio_É_Amor ("Father Júlio is Love," in Portuguese) on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.

“I can’t understand what moves a councilman to open an investigation against someone who dedicates his life to help those who need the most,” said chef Paola Carossella, who is also a popular local TV host.

It would be a funny premise for a sci-fi novel if some enlightened Aliens depose the US government and obviously, the most progressive indigenous vanguard, the PSL are installed in their place. Brian becker and his 1,100 millenial cadres and 1000 candidate members just given the controls to everything overnight.

we could assume the military would be immediately disarmed, and the PSL would have some superior weapons to enforce the peace. since the aliens are so advanced, they'd probably give them very discerning and non-lethal weapons. the situation in Cuba, Palestine, etc. would immediately get a lot better. Everything in America would just get very funny. PCUSA would likely do something extremely funny.

possible drone attack in Beirut

Fact checking a claim a random twitter user made in another mind numbing "is Cuba socialist" discussion, because i didnt have the answer even though im pretty sure its wrong.

Is Cuba currently "doing austerity?"

What's Iran saying about the terror attack?

I have so much work to do. That’s why I’m posting more Hamas funny moments compilations:

Less new: https://streamable.com/n14z8k

New clashes (cw blood): https://streamable.com/yexzol

Patrick Lancaster is back on the front with an artillery team.

Ancap update:

Prices going up:

The various oil companies in Argentina, both public and private, have announced a rise in fuel prices, ranging from 23% to 27% of the current value.

This is the first increase in fuel prices this year, and in December 2023 fuel prices were increased twice. Regular gasoline will sell for an average of 700 pesos.

In several places in Argentina, gasoline is selling for almost 900 pesos a liter. This comes after price increases of almost 30%, as announced yesterday.

Milei loses lawsuit and has a new enemy:

The Governor of La Rioja Province, Ricardo Quintela, said in an interview that if Argentine President Javier Milei wants to hand over the region's lithium to anyone without the province's consent, "they'll have to come with an army".

In the same interview, Quintela said that if the Judicialist Party doesn't organize itself, people will take to the streets in disarray, because there is no opposition leadership.

He also asked the President of the PJ, former President of Argentina, Alberto Fernandez, to return from Spain.

Quintela has been a great challenger to Milei, being responsible for the judicial appeal to overturn Javier Milei's Decree of Necessity and Urgency, the DNU, in the Supreme Court.

Argentine court suspends labor reform provided for in Milei's 'decree':

The Labor Court's decision is precautionary. There is still a discussion about the appropriate court to deal with this issue. What the labor judges have said is that, until the question of the appropriate forum is resolved, Milei's labor reform is suspended.

The Argentine Labor Court decided on Wednesday (3) to suspend part of the "decree" of Javier Milei, the country's current president. The decision applies to measures related to the labor reform proposed by Milei

The changes to labor rules that Milei wants to implement were considered controversial in the country. Among the changes that most displeased the unions are the increase in the probationary period to 8 months, participation in demonstrations as a legal reason for dismissal and changes to the compensation system for professionals who leave a company.

The Labor Court's decision is precautionary. There is still a debate about the appropriate court to deal with this issue. What the labor judges have said is that, until the question of the appropriate forum is resolved, the measure is suspended.

The lawsuit was filed with the Labor Court by an Argentine trade union center.

Big escalation from Israel with the assasination in Beirut(via al-jazeera live threat): "Hezbollah previously warned Israel against assassinations in Lebanon

Back in August, when Netanyahu threatened Palestinian leaders in Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the group would respond to attacks in the country.

“Any assassination on Lebanese soil against a Lebanese, Palestinian, Iranian or Syrian person will be met with a strong response. We cannot remain silent and allow opening the Lebanese scene to assassinations,” Nasrallah said at that time.

Israel’s attack in the southern suburb of Beirut represents a major escalation in the continuing clashes between Hezbollah and the Israeli military, which had been confined to the Lebanon-Israel border area."