Thousands of Nagorno Karabakh Armenians are at the Stepanakert airport to try and escape. The airport apparently doesn't even work.

India Suspends Visas for Canada Nationals Amid Diplomatic Row

Previously, Canadian PM Trudeau said he had credible information of possible links of Indian agents in the murder of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

On Thursday, India suspended visa services for Canadian citizens, visa service provider BLS International said, citing a notice from the Indian mission.

The BLS International, a private agency hired for initial scrutiny of visa applications, said "Important notice from Indian Mission: Due to operational reasons, with effect from 21 September 2023, Indian visa services have been suspended till further notice."

The announcement came amid a diplomatic tussle between the two countries, where Ottawa accused New Delhi of involvement in the killing of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Both countries had expelled each other's diplomats from their respective embassies.

Meanwhile, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan indicated that the United States is in "constant" contact with Canada and India to prevent the diplomatic conflict unleashed by the assassination of the Sikh separatist leader from escalating.

At a news conference, Sullivan said Washington expressed concern about allegations that Indian agents may have been involved in Nijjar's death.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had credible information of possible links of Indian government agents in the murder in Canada of Nijjar, whom the Indian government considered a terrorist.

Nijjar, the Sikh separatist who was murdered in June in front of a temple in Canada, Nijjar, was organizing an unofficial "referendum" to consult the community on the creation in the state of Punjab of an independent country, Khalistan, for the Sikh minority.

Libs explaining how Ukrainians had no other choice but to volunteer for the SS and ethnically cleanse Lvov because of le evil Stalin

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement that Russia was "deeply alarmed by the sharp escalation." Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia will not defend Armenia from the Azerbaijani offensive, while strongly criticizing Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan. This comes despite Russia and Armenia both being members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization mutual defense pact and Russia stationing several thousand soldiers in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh as peacekeepers.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkish diplomats about the crisis. Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations called on the U.S. and the international community to act to stop Azerbaijan while Representative Brad Sherman (D-CA32) stated that the renewed fighting makes clear that "Azerbaijan cannot receive U.S. military aid until it ends the crisis it has created.

Iran considers Nagorno-Karabakh part of Azerbaijan, but calls for solving the problems of the region through dialogue, said the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic, Nasser Kanani Chafi.

The representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry also emphasized his country’s readiness to hold a meeting in the “three plus three” format to resolve the Karabakh problem.

The UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Karabakh is scheduled for September 21

Hey what's with this 1 Million March 4 Children happening all over Canada tomorrow? Looks like it's a Freedom Convoy 2.0 except explicitly to terrorize Trans people.

Schools are organizing safe walks for students, it looks like it's going to be a big clash? Or worse if they march basically unopposed?

Nagorno-Karabakh surrendered

The Office of Artsakh's Ombudsman confirms a minimum of 200 fatalities and over 400 wounded individuals in Artsakh. Within the civilian population, there are over 40 injured individuals, including 13 children, with 10 confirmed civilian deaths at this time, including 5 children.

There are thousands of people who still cannot find their relatives and family members. The Office of the Human Rights Defender of Artsakh launched a fact-finding mission to collect data on the persons whose fate is not known.

Given the current lack of electricity, connectivity issues, and areas that are surrounded by Azerbaijan's Armed Forces, it is anticipated that these numbers will likely rise in the coming days.

Bob Menendez got indicted for bribery?

Oh I forgot to chime in with this article I read on Singapore in the latest Le Monde Diplomatique. It's a pretty good overview of Singapore as it currently stands. It's behind a paywall, so I'll post it as a reply chain below. Title is "Has the Singapore model lost its shine?: Singaporeans can vote, but the opposition is kept in check. They can strike, but never do. They depend on disenfranchised immigrant labour. But are cracks beginning to show in the ‘Singapore model’?" From: https://mondediplo.com/2023/09/03singapore

Also, interestingly Singapore has an air force. Like, a fairly massive one. Over 100 fighter jets, for a tiny country with 6 million people! Suppose it's a deterrent thing.

A Truce in Nagorno-Karabakh

A ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, brokered by Russian peacekeepers, was agreed by Armenian separatists on Wednesday, a day after Azerbaijan launched an offensive to capture the besieged enclave. Karabakh is recognised internationally as being part of Azerbaijan but is populated exclusively by Armenians. Under the terms of the deal, Karabakh’s militias agreed to disarm and disband—one of Azerbaijan’s long-standing demands.

The ceasefire may have prevented a humanitarian catastrophe. Around 30 people were killed in the fighting and more than 200 wounded. Azerbaijan insisted it was only targeting armed separatists. But the attack unleashed fears of a campaign of ethnic cleansing as thousands of Armenian civilians began fleeing their homes.

Azerbaijani officials will meet Karabakh civilian representatives on Thursday to discuss the agreement and prospects for the enclave’s reintegration with Azerbaijan. How and whether Karabakh's 120,000 Armenians can live under Azerbaijan’s rule is still an open question. But the bloodshed seems to have stopped, for now.

CBC running an article to lionize Taiwanese airsoft larpers lmfao

Is it really like that? On the topic of Azerbaijan against Armenia, the latter is apparently supported by the US, Russia and Iran at the same time?

Ukrainian nationalist (not far right)

Does the Poland Ukraine drama make it more likely or less likely that Poland occupies Western Ukraine for "peace keeping"?

Gunterbros... it's so over...

On the Ukrainian front, nothing new.

Has the USAF checked to see if the missing F-35 is at the M&M store in Times Square?

https://www.upstreamonline.com/exploration/companies-turn-to-cuba-following-landmark-onshore-discovery/2-1-1521077

International oil companies operating in Cuba could be looking for additional hydrocarbon resources soon, on the heels of a potentially transformative onshore discovery made on the Caribbean island.

Australian independent Melbana Energy in partnership with Angola state-owned company Sonangol have successfully unlocked oil in Block 9 with the Alameda-1 and Alameda-2 wells, suggesting a production development could be on the cards.

Melbana praised Alameda as a “tremendous success”, with the Alameda-2 well flowing at rates of 1903 barrels per day of oil graded at 19 degrees API at peak during a test carried out a few weeks ago.

Mini swiss news update:

Swiss central bank is not increasing interest rates and keeps them at 1.75

Swiss government has their fall session and the big topics are:

Insurance premiums, since 2000 they've doubled and from 2022 to 2023 they've increased by 6.6%

Wasted opportunity by left wing parties for not calling to abolish all the health insurance companies and just having one they just want the state to pay more for relief.

Climate, after this historically warm summer this has become a rather large topic with questions of how can we achieve CO2 neutrality and if it's even possible, one of the proposals is that every building over 300 square meters has to have solar panels installed.

Selling Weapons considering the ongoing pressure this is going to be a topic for a long time the newest proposal is to allow the army to sell its 25 decommissioned Leopard-2 tanks back to Germany, who'd immediately send them to Ukraine.

Tobacco ads swiss people voted on no longer allowing any ads for tobacco this spring (56.6% to 43.4%) and now parliament is trying to worm themselves out of it by saying "well the text said it was to protect kids so what if we just ban it all together that'd go too far"

Regulationbrake this is something that's been again proposed by market liberals, basically if the politicians vote on it companies can chose to ignore regulations and laws, this already came up last summer session and was voted down by every party but the FDP and now during the fall session they are trying to do it again.

The whole session is going to conclude on the 29th so maybe there'll be some developments.

Zelensky submits, trades Soviet gundam blueprints with Russia in exchange for release of all prisoners of war including azov battalion members.

This is a very interesting development. In total that means 40k POW’s returning to Ukraine which is a large number of bodies but at the same time Putin now has Ukrainian SSR gundam blueprints which would mean the war would literally be over.

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-09-21-23/h_c248504d591aa2fee553a9a11a3f496a

As part of the meeting, Biden will announce a new package of military assistance, including “significant air defense capabilities to help Ukraine protect its people,” which the White House official said, “will help Ukraine harden its defenses ahead of what is likely to be a tough winter, filled with renewed Russian attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure.”

The US will not be providing Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to Ukraine, however, Sullivan said — despite requests from Ukraine.

“The president is constantly speaking both to his own military and to his counterparts in Europe and to the Ukrainians themselves about what is needed on the battlefield at any given phase of the war and then what the United States can provide," Sullivan said. “As he's weighed all that up to today, he has determined that he would not provide ATACMS, but he is also not taking it off the table in the future.”

So what's the deal in the Azerbaijani Armenian conflict? Armenia was previously pro-Russia but new leader has pivoted west to the US to the extent of even asking for US protection now. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is ( politically ) supported by Turkiye? There is also a Russian peace keeping force in Nagorno-Karabakh. Is this internal NATO infighting between Turkiye and the US? Has Russia sold Armenia out (prosumably ceding to Turkiye and Azerbaijan)? What the heck is the real balance of forces on the ground and how invested are they. Can we get some dialectical materialist analysis up in this shit?

apparently pakistan couldn't quite finish financing the last bit of an IMF loan, so they ended up just selling a bunch of weapons to the US to make up the difference after they couped khan?

the naked capitalism article i think is a bit sensationalist regarding the fate of CPEC after this revelation since i'm of the opinion that it is actually somewhat in china's interest for the ukraine conflict to drag out as long as possible, but perhaps this is the opening salvo of financial capital's asian counteroffensive. intercept article for deets

A few months back a Greenlandic member of the Danish Parliament pissed off Danish politicians by insisting on addressing the assembly in Greenlandic. The attention prompted the presidium of the parliament to take their efforts to create better opportunities for speakers of Greenlandic and Faroese out of the picking jar. Now the work is done and they have decided on how to do things.

The presidium flatly rejected a fully trilingual solution akin to that of the European Parliament or the Greenlandic parliament where proceedings are simultaneously interpreted and all parliamentary documents exists in a Greenlandic and a Danish version, claiming that such a solution would be too expensive. Instead Greenlandic and Faroese MP's will get extended speaking time, enabling them to translate themselves. They will also be granted extra funds to hire translators.

The new model is being criticized by interpreters and Greenlandic politicians for assuming that non-Danish MP's are as good at speaking Danish as they are at speaking their native language and that translation is only done to the benefit of their constituents at home. Interpretation takes skill and you cannot assume that any elected official will be able to provide a professional quality translation. The new procedure also makes no mention of how Danish MP's are going to be translated for Greenlandic and Faroese MP's and constituents.

Greenland and the Faroe Islands are self-ruling colonies of Denmark each with their own national parliaments. Of the 179 members of the Danish parliament two are elected in Greenland and two in the Faroe Islands.