I'm flattered, but I don't want any evil imposter twins making posts with my exact name and profile picture, lmao. Impersonating a mod is bannable, even if you're doing it because you like the mod.

Anyway: here's an article I found on Germany's industrial woes vis-a-vis China:

SCMP: Germany’s China shock: as Scholz leaves Beijing, others raise alarm about waning economic honeymoon

[hexatlas tags: Germany, China]

The article starts by describing how Germany has benefited from a relationship with China even as America began suffering, and then moves on to recent years:

A growing number of economists believe the prolonged Sino-German honeymoon period is over. Tales like Webasto’s struggle with Chinese competition will become the rule rather than the exception in the relationship as the complementary nature that enriched both sides over the past quarter of a century wanes.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China this week amid an intensifying debate about how Berlin should engage with Beijing in the future. On one side, some big companies are doubling down on their investments in China, typified by Volkswagen’s announcement last week it would spend US$2.68 billion expanding production and research facilities in Hefei in Anhui province in southeastern China.

From this side, any disruption to Sino-German trade is troublesome. Senior German automotive lobbyist Andreas Rade accused the European Union investigation into Chinese electric vehicle subsidies of having “no consensus” among member states, and being “not a good signal”.

But many businesses on the front lines disagree. As China has moved up the value chain and its manufacturers have become more sophisticated, suppliers and customers of German industry have become fierce competitors. The German automotive industry’s sluggish embrace of new electric vehicles, along with China’s stunning rise in this sector, presents a whole new raft of challenges.

Germany dodged a “China shock” when China joined the WTO a generation ago. Research estimates, however, that the trend claimed more than half a million American manufacturing jobs, leading to frustrations that helped usher in the political tumult of Donald Trump. Now, with the German economy ailing, some predict its China shock has arrived.

Chemicals giant BASF announced 2,600 job losses in Germany last year, even as it expanded its investments in China – a trend labour unions said was “not acceptable”. Engineering giant Bosch cut several thousand automotive jobs in Germany this year and last, while pumping several billion euros into research and development and production centres in China. The labour union IG Metall described it as “a fatal signal for Germany as an industrial hub”, according to the Rhodium report published in February. Similar trends were noted for automotive giants Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and ZF Friedrichshafen.

At the same time, German exports to China have been plunging. In 2023, they fell 4.2 per cent from the previous year. The trend worsened into 2024, Chinese customs statistics show, with a 16.6 per cent slump over the first quarter.

“I think it’s absolutely fair to say that China is moving into the kind of space that Germany used to occupy quite prominently in the world economy, especially if you look at export numbers,” he said, pointing to China’s “high and rising share of not only automobiles, but also machinery”.

Russian gas stops flowing into Germany thanks to the US blowing up Nordstream and this raises energy prices, while China increasingly occupies Germany's manufacturing niche. They haven't been slammed from both sides this hard since 1945.

Surely, however, Germany is ready to take on the challenge of China by increasing competitiveness via intelligent economic planning? I don't even really know why I bothered to jokingly ask; they obviously aren't:

Euractiv: Germans must work more to boost weak economy, BDA, Deutsche Bank say

The long-term growth potential of the German economy has declined from 2.5% in the 1970s to just 0.5% today, according to data from the German Council of Economic Experts. On top of that, the energy crisis of the last two years has compounded problems for country’s manufacturing-heavy economy, resulting in particularly adverse growth expectations for 2024.

According to fresh figures released by the IMF on Tuesday, Germany is performing the worst among all major global economies – with economic growth estimated at 0.2% projected this year.

This, the head of BDA Rainer Dulger said, was also due to a shift in mindset in the workforce. “Apparently, the concept of work-life balance has somehow been overdone. At least that’s my impression,” Dulger said at an event organised by the liberal FDP party.

While the number of people employed has increased from slightly below 40 million in the 1990s to 45.9 million in 2023 – praised by the current coalition government as ‘record employment’ – the overall amount of hours worked has remained the same, due to reduced working hours, Dulger said.

“I’ve always enjoyed working,” Dulger continued. “And I would love to see more young people in this country getting up in the morning and actually enjoying what they do. Work must be valued more by the state, but also by society” he said, calling for “more respect for work and for those who create it.”

Dulger’s views were echoed by Christian Sewing, CEO of Germany’s biggest lender Deutsche Bank, who said that foreign investors were ready to invest in Germany, but only if they saw high motivation among workers.

Criticising proposals by, among others, Germany’s biggest trade union IG Metall, for introducing a four-day work week in certain sectors, Sewing cited OECD data showing that an average worker in Germany at present works 25.8 hours per week – the lowest among all OECD countries.

The opinions voiced by the two business leaders on Tuesday align with the stance of FDP party leader Lindner, who has recently circulated the idea of exempting paid overtime from taxes to motivate employees to work extra hours. “If you want to be at the top in terms of living standards, if you want to be at the top in terms of social security and if you want to represent top ecological and moral standards, you must also be prepared to show top performance again,” Lindner said at the same event.

Were you "representing top moral standards" when you defended Israel from accusations of genocide while thousands of Palestinian children and babies lie dead?

God damnit I tried to watch Hasan cause I'm not watching cable news and I'm not logging on to Twitter and this thread isn't updating enough. But he's just livestreaming CNN so I am reminded why I don't want to watch cable news. Tired old "experts" speculating about nonsense.

According to a ~~February 2024~~ October 2023 survey of the West Bank and Gaza, @JoeBiden is second only to Bashar al Assad in unpopularity among Palestinians. Erdogan meanwhile enjoys the greatest prestige.

what? why do they hate Assad so much?

I wake up to use the bathroom at 4am and the world is ending, that's just great

I slept through this event but it seems to be being presented as an Israel counterattack in the british media but the reality seems to be Israel hasn't claimed the attack?

If that's the case then it's been coordinated to be something Iran can't respond to while it can allow Israel to pretend it responded.

Rafah invasion will be next if the leaks suggesting the US traded accepting their Rafah plans for Israel not performing a counterstrike.

A man wearing a bomb vest has barricaded himself in the Iranian embassy in Paris, and is threatening to blow himself up. French police have set up a security perimeter around the embassy

French counter terrorist police have arrested the man who threatened to blow up the embassy.

If anyone wants some context to remember how fast narratives shift, here’s a lemmy thread from 8 months ago about how ‘Russia cannot win’ and will have to surrender to Ukraine soon. It wasn’t that long ago that the entire western media was saying that Russia is a joke, Russia uses shovels, Russia has to use washing machine parts for missiles, Russia military has been reduced to 10% of its original size, etc.

I just want a pat on the head for being right, just once.

https://hexbear.net/post/365344

Welcome to fanfiction hour, courtesy of Pepe Escobar.

good write up on the Iranian Attack and the new "Equation"

Iran Breaches Anglo-Zionist Defenses in Historic Attack: A Breakdown [..]

They call this the New Equation. Anytime Israel attacks them, Iran now intends to strike them ‘head on’, i.e. directly from its soil as is their newly demonstrated capability. Beyond this, Iran broke new ground in setting new milestones for missile technology and modern warfare, as stated in the outset. Iran demonstrated the capacity to bypass the most powerful and advanced anti-missile systems in the world—ones that have no built-in excuse as is the case in Ukraine. In Ukraine, the excuse is that the Patriots and other systems are manned by under-trained Ukrainians, and are not reinforced and integrated as wholly into layered Western systems as they would be in Western hands. But last night, Iran penetrated every missile shield manned and operated by NATO itself, with all the trappings and advanced C4ISR and SIGINT capabilities inherent to the entire Western alliance; from THAAD, to Patriot, David’s Sling, Arrow-3, SM-3, Iron Dome, and even ‘C-Dome’ from Israeli corvettes—not to mention the entire complement of the West’s most advanced A2A defenses flown from F-35s, Typhoons, Eurofighters, and likely much more. One must understand that ballistic missiles are precisely the apex predator that these most advanced Western AD systems were created to handle—and last night, they failed spectacularly in the same way the Patriots did in Desert Storm before them [...]

Ancap Update:

Javier Milei will no longer fly commercially.

According to the Argentine government, the decision was taken for security reasons. "There's no money, but we have to take care of the president," said the presidential spokesman.

The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, will stop flying on commercial airlines as he did in his first four months in office, a practice with which he sought to cut spending, his spokesman said on Tuesday (16).

"The president can no longer travel on commercial flights and the Ministry of Security has sent all parties a confidential report on the reason for this suggestion," spokesman Manuel Adorni told a press conference.

On Monday, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich told LN+: "There's no money, but we have to take care of the president."

Milei and his team are expected to start using the Boeing 757-256 "Tango 01" as early as Friday, on a trip to Bariloche, in the south of the country, where the ultra-liberal president will take part in a meeting with businesspeople.

After taking office in December, Milei undertook a draconian spending cut to try to pull Argentina out of the economic crisis and, among other measures, announced that he and his team would no longer travel on the three planes in his air fleet.

Since then, he has boarded commercial planes with a reduced entourage and published videos on his social networks in which he appears greeting and taking "selfies" with the other passengers.

So he went to the seaside resort of Mar del Plata to visit his then girlfriend, actress Fátima Florez; and then to Davos, his international debut as president, where he intrigued the world's economic elite by warning: "The West is in danger."

On that occasion, the president celebrated on the X network that his decision had allowed him to save almost 400,000 dollars (R$2.1 million) which came "out of the efforts of Argentinians".

His last trip was last week, when he flew to the United States on Aerolíneas Argentinas and met with tycoon Elon Musk in Texas.

The trip was due to continue to Copenhagen, Denmark, on Saturday, but Milei canceled the remaining leg and returned to his country to set up a "crisis committee" for the for the Iranian attack on Israel that same day.

Milei then expressed his "solidarity and unwavering commitment to the State of Israel"

Israel worries ICC could order arrest of top officials, including premier

Jerusalem is concerned that the International Criminal Court in The Hague could soon issue arrest warrants against senior officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the Israel Defense Forces operation against Hamas, Channel 12 News reported Thursday.

According to the report, an emergency meeting was held at Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday in the presence of Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Israel Katz.

The four decided to take “urgent action with international authorities” to prevent the arrest of Israelis abroad, Channel 12 added.

Huge respect to South Africa's Foreign Minister, Naledi Pandor. She has been the one pushing hardest for this.

whos that one conspiracy person on here who kept talking about flooding west asia with foreign aid dollars to reinstate dollar hegemony? they just passed ur bill lol

cocoa price update:

it rose another 15 percent from the last time

although i have seen some news that last summer was unbearable at ivory coast

Russia give Iran S-400 air defence systems and Su-30s please

Voting is underway in this Lara State commune in Venezuela.

The people in this community are choosing which project will be financed by the govt and implemented by the them, the people. The choice is between 7 infrastructure projects, ranging from water wells, road paving, and electricity grid fixes.

“Our message to Latin America and the world is that it’s people power that leads Venezuela.”

Lara State is Venezuela’s 4th most populous and a top producer of coffee, pineapple, milk, wine, rum & eggs. We’re visiting the communes here to observe today’s elections.

https://x.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1782097865377972662

cool thread

Apparently the two people who used chemical weapons against pro-Palestinian Colombia University student protesters are "ex-"IDF soldiers.

Base in Babel, Iraq, possible Air strike. Major blasts and couple different fires ongoing at the location. Video was shot few moments ago

BREAKING: Strikes targeted what appears to weapons depot in Babylon province, central Iraq, that belongs to Iran-affiliated Popular Mobilization Forces.

oh no not again. same place as yesterday.

But the Greater Israel will not wait. We hope that in the near future the whole country will become the place for the celebration of Shushan Purim. We will continue our work - cleansing the enemies of the Holy People, restoring the Holy Land within its original borders from the Nile to the Euphrates and restoring the Temple of Jerusalem.

Rabbi Avraham Shmulevich, a rabbi living in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron, Israel). I think I found the most evil person alive, or the person with the most vile despicable ideology. Apparently his group contacts every immigrant from CIS nations (tons of disaffected gusanos with chips on their shoulders) to Israel they can and tries to rope them into their "hyperzionist" cult. He then goes around advising Ukraine, Georgia and Israel for some reason and getting news interviews on cable TV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6txrhocvcRE

Here he is on some Ukrainian fascist channel because of course he is (Priamyi (Ukrainian: Прямий))

https://prm.ua/143069/

Rough english translation:

Hamas is a terrorist organization that is recognized as a terrorist organization almost all over the world, except for Russia, and which is backed by Iran. And Iran is Russia's closest ally.

This was stated exclusively to Pryamyy TV channel by political scientist, expert on Islam, the Middle East and the CIS, President of the Institute for Eastern Partnership Avraham Shmulevych.

"The situation is very complicated, there are victims, a lot of people who have been injured. How will the situation in this region continue to develop?

Hamas is a terrorist organization that is recognized as a terrorist organization almost all over the world, except for Russia. As you know, Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, called Hamas Russia's partner. Iran is behind this organization. And they aim to destroy the state of Israel. They say this openly. Now they are using the tactic of human shields. That is, they send a crowd of people to break through the Israeli border with Molotov cocktails, axes, and cold steel. They throw stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers. The goal is to cause as many casualties as possible. Because, naturally, the Israelis open fire, defending their border.

And then there is an international scandal. It's the same tactic, and I don't know who taught them. Either Russian curators... It's the same as during the Great Patriotic War, when Russia sent Russian soldiers with stones at German machine guns."

Interesting to see the ukrainian and Israeli far rights merging in their hatred of Russia

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-security-council-vote-thursday-palestinian-un-membership-2024-04-18/

The UNSC will do voting for Palestine's full membership in the U.N.

https://militaryland.net/news/the-leadership-disbands-the-core-of-the-67th-mechanized-brigade/ (Actual source is Ukrainian Pravda)

Amid reports they’re operationally encircled in Chasiv Yar, the Nazi right sector 67th motorized brigade is “being disbanded”.

UA Pravda accuses the brigade of sending conscripts (“pixels”) to the hotspots on the frontline to die without support from the experienced right sector Nazi cohort who were the original foundation of this autonomous right sector unit.

The brigade, currently holding the front in one of the hottest fights in Ukraine right now, states they will fight efforts to disband the unit and distribute soldiers to other commands.

Meanwhile some analysts are speculating they may be operationally surrounded now with Russia appearing to have fire control over most of their possible exit and supply routes.

Wump wump.

So (1) a bunch of Nazis are probably gonna die soon and (2) that is Ukrainian media complaining about how the fascist core of their army is sending undertrained conscripts to die.

Man sets himself on fire in front of Donald Trump trial courthouse

According to the New York Times, the man was in Collect Pond Park, which is opposite the courthouse, in an area intended for Trump supporters when he threw flammable liquid on his body and set himself on fire.

A village that Azerbaijan has wiped from the face of the Earth:
https://nitter.poast.org/301arm/status/1781403456722346439

#UPDATE Al Mayadeen's correspondent, citing the spokesperson of the Iranian Space Agency, says that air defense batteries responded to 3 targets over Isfahan

He added that reports indicate that air defenses responded to threats in #Qahjavarestan, northeast of #Isfahan, as no aerial objects hit ground targets.

Our correspondent stressed that all of the explosions heard on Friday were a result of air defense interceptions. Citing unofficial sources our correspondent said that the targets that were shot down were small drones, not missiles

https://x.com/MayadeenEnglish/status/1781151400677834914

this is strange. Israel is taking credit for it, but Iran isn't saying Israel did it.

Fuck Zionists, Fuck Israel

Since the beginning of April, Russia has advanced 5 kilometers in the direction of Ocheretyne. If they maintain this pace, they could potentially reach the outskirts of Donetsk Oblast within six months (assuming their goal is simply to keep moving forward). To the river Dnepr they would need 2 more years. Please dont take this serious.

enjoyers of blood and killing can celebrate today