Uruguay: The political left achieved a majority in the Senate in the first round of voting.

Maduro declares himself a Marxist-Leninist. Says he believes in Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao-Zedong, Fidel Castro, Bolivar and Chavez.

https://tankie.tube/w/4niduPYSN8w2j6DK7RZpow

EDIT: The quality of this is shit I'll reupload.

EDIT2: Reup https://streamable.com/cijwwe

Dollar’s Enduring Appeal on Show in China’s Sovereign Bond Sale

China’s Dollar Dedication

Just weeks after China’s President Xi Jinping signed off on a BRICS communique that included a call for reducing use of the dollar, his finance ministry was marketing sovereign bonds denominated in — wait for it — US dollars.

Actions speak louder than words, as the old saying goes. For all the de-dollarization fervor, Beijing is demonstrating that it remains dedicated, or at least resigned, to continuing to use greenbacks in international finance.

China’s government has no real dollar-funding need itself, so one of the main motivations is to offer benchmarks for Chinese banks and corporations to price their own bonds off of. Dollar-denominated securities are appealing to Chinese borrowers because they can access a broader pool of investors than at home. Some Chinese investors also like dollar investments to park their funds offshore.

High rates and a run of defaults cast a shadow over the Chinese dollar debt market for a time, and the government held off on sovereign issuance in 2022 and 2023. In September, when Beijing for the first time in three years sold its first new sovereign bonds in euros — popular lately with Asian corporate issuers — the question was whether dollars would also resume.

This year’s dollar sale came with a twist: the securities were sold in Saudi Arabia, not Hong Kong as was done in the past. Which also tells a story. First, it demonstrates China’s increasing connections with the Middle Eastern oil giant, which is building its own international financial hub in capital city Riyadh.

Fans of de-dollarization have for years awaited a move by oil exporters to shift their pricing of crude to Chinese yuan, at least when it’s shipped to China. But dreams of a petro-yuan always ran into a key challenge: what would Saudi Arabia and others do with the Chinese currency? China itself maintains capital controls, which makes it awkward for any investor interested in liquidity.

This week’s China dollar bond sale suggests a solution: keep on pricing the oil in dollars, and build out an offshore dollar bond market in Riyadh, with China’s help.

Whatever the longer-term intentions, investors loved the deal: bids were some 20 times the $2 billion of bonds on offer and they were sold for a razor thin margin over similar-maturity Treasuries.

Unfortunately saw this coming for a while now. Nothing’s good gonna happen when Saudi Arabia is involved. I have said before that Saudi Arabia (not in BRICS yet) is going to play the role of dollarizing BRICS, not dedollarizing it.

China’s economy is going to do fine, but de-dollarization and challenging US imperialism are going to take a back seat for now.

seems like abkhazia (one of those georgian breakaway statelets) had protests and a coup (?). Kinda weird stuff, over investments or something with russia. Probably could be read as not wanting to sell their land or something

https://search.app?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com%2Fpost%2Fliteracy-statistics-2022-2023&utm_campaign=aga&utm_source=agsadl1%2Csh%2Fx%2Fgs%2Fm2%2F4

Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 130 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children

21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2022

54% of adults have a literacy below 6th grade level

45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level

44% of the American adults do not read a book in a year

The Top 3 states for highest child literacy rates were Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Hampshire, in that order (highest to lowest).

The Bottom 3 states for child literacy rates were Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico, (highest to lowest).

Any American here that could tell me if it's legit. It's shockingly low.

Trump and Biden Meet at the White House to Facilitate Power Transition - Telesur English

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israelis--french-far-right-threaten-melenchon--other-officia

Dufour highlighted two assassination attempts against Mélenchon, noting that LFI officials have been subjected to ongoing harassment.

Melenchon, regularly threatened with death and having narrowly escaped a terrorist plot orchestrated by four neo-Nazis, condemned the ongoing threats against him and his colleagues on November 12. He described the current political climate as deeply "toxic," marked by a continuous campaign of vilification against members of his party.

Pretty cool for Xi to namedrop Mariategui:
https://xcancel.com/upholdreality/status/1857205700381855934

Xi Jinping arrives in Peru to unveil the largest and most modern port in South America, built by China

"As early as more than 400 years ago, the people of China and Peru started friendly exchanges through the Maritime Silk Road and the Manila Galleons..."

"Through the wisdom of our civilizations, our minds find common ground and our hearts resonate... Peruvian thinker José Carlos Mariátegui once said, "Spiritually and materially, China is closer to us than Europe. The psychology of our people is more Asian than Western...""

"The world is undergoing faster transformation unseen in a century. Humanity has again come to a crossroads in history. To fully appreciate the grandeur of the Nazca Lines, we must view them from a height because at the ground level, their true splendor remains hidden from view.

To quote a Chinese poem to the same effect, 'Fear not the clouds that obscure your view, for you stand atop the highest summit.'

China is ready to join Peru in embracing a broader vision and grasping the underlying trends of our times from a long historical perspective to champion true multilateralism, promote an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, jointly implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and build together a community with a shared future for mankind."