(archive link)

Democrats are reportedly coordinating activity on Reddit and abusing X Community Notes

Kamala Harris’ and Tim Walz’s campaign staff have organized “astroturf” operations on the social media platform Reddit and conspired to manipulate the Community Notes feature on X, according to an American researcher.

The Harris-Walz campaign “fraudulently games Community Notes with sock puppet accounts and astroturf tactics. And we have the screenshots and spreadsheets and campaign comms to prove it,” Sean Davis, founder of the outlet Federalist, posted on Wednesday.

Davis was citing a series of articles by a researcher going by the handle ‘Reddit Lies’, including screenshots taken from the Harris-Walz server on the messaging platform Discord, purporting to show how the Democrats conspired to swamp social media with their content, while suppressing criticism.

What a surprise. All that crying about Russia, Russia, Russia. Many of us have long known that there was coordination going on and that the teams and tactics date back to the Hillary campaign.

The researchers are of course Republican reactionary types. But it's nice they're paying attention and howling about this as it would be if they do something to harass or punish these people if they win power as they are ever so annoying.

For those a bit confused, this is the first time the US military has agreed with Ukrainian and occupied Korean claims that the DPRK has sent troops intended for Ukraine itself and marks an escalation in propaganda rhetoric.

I've archived the source to avoid giving the AP clicks for uncritically carried western propaganda.

US issued meaningless threat that they would be considered combatants and targeted by weapons the west gave them if they fought there alongside Russian troops (duh, very confusing and kinda telling statement).

“Today, I can confirm that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, and that North Korean military units have been deployed to the Kursk region,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told reporters. Rutte said the move represents “a significant escalation” in North Korea’s involvement in the conflict and marks “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s war.”

Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II will pile more pressure on Ukraine’s weary and overstretched army. It will also stoke geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is keen to reshape global power dynamics. He sought to build a counterbalance to Western influence with a summit of BRICS countries, including the leaders of China and India, in Russia last week. He has sought direct help for the war from Iran, which has supplied drones, and North Korea, which has shipped large amounts of ammunition, according to Western governments.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov shrugged off Rutte’s comments and noted that Pyongyang and Moscow signed a joint security pact last June. He stopped short of confirming North Korean soldiers were in Russia.

The Ukraine regime is now claiming that these troops could be on the battlefield in days. A strange reversal from claims they were already on the battlefield and they'd captured some which happened a week ago. Time must be moving backwards there.

IMO this represents a pretext being invented to give Ukraine an excuse to use long-range weapons for deep strikes into Russia by saying it's fair game for the US to help as the DPRK is helping Russia (as if those two things are equal). In other words a desperate rush to nuclear war.

(Original source)

Leaders of several opposition parties in Georgia have said they will not recognize the results of the weekend's national parliamentary vote. According to the official results, the ruling Georgian Dream party received almost 54% of the vote, while various opposition forces attracted between 11% and 3%.

Georgian Dream party chairman Mamuka Mdinaradze has claimed the party is likely to win at least 90 of the national chamber’s 150 seats, up from the 74 it won in the last election. The party will then be able to form the next government since a simple 76-strong majority is needed in Georgia to pick the next prime minister and cabinet.

Tina Bokuchava, who heads the pro-Western Unity-National Movement (UNM) party, has accused the nation’s central election committee of doing Georgian Dream’s bidding and of “stealing the European future” of Georgia.

"The European future" really giving the game away with that anti-Russian chauvinism.

Bokuchava also said on Sunday that she’d already met with Georgia’s Western-leaning president Salome Zourabichvili, describing the meeting as “very important.” According to media in Georgia, the president has met with representatives of several opposition groups on Sunday, including the UNM and ‘Strong Georgia.’

Not good.

Salome Zourabichvili has claimed that the vote was won by what she called “European Georgia,” and despite alleged “attempts to rig elections.”

Georgian Dream’s Mdinaradze responded to the president’s statements by calling her an “agent” of the opposition radicals. “Georgia no longer has a president. Georgia has an agent, a leader of the radical opposition… the main coordinator,” the politician stated on Sunday.

Georgian Dream seem to be whatever else they are as not comprador lap-dogs of the west, maybe not entirely pro-Russian but realistic, they're the ones who pushed through the law forcing outing of foreign funding for NGOs which resulted in an attempted color revolution that failed.

(archive link)

The billionaire distributed the money to “fascists” through opposition figure Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan leader has claimed

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused tech tycoon Elon Musk of “investing” at least $1 billion in inciting violence in the South American country after the presidential election earlier this year.

Maduro was declared the winner of the July 28 poll by the national election authorities, though the US claimed that victory had been stolen from opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.

During his weekly television program on Monday, Maduro alleged to have direct knowledge that Musk – with whom he has been engaged in a long-running public feud – had spent “no less than $1 billion” on “the coup d’etat, the fascist outbreak, the violence against the electoral process in Venezuela.”

The Venezuelan leader named his political opponent, businesswoman Maria Corina Machado, as the distributor of the alleged funding to “fascist” groups, claiming that the US government was ultimately behind attempts to oust him from power.

Following the vote in July, Musk accused Maduro of “major election fraud,” while the Venezuelan president declared the South African-born billionaire his “arch enemy” who “controls the virtual reality” created by social media. The two agreed to settle their differences in a fistfight, which never happened.

Musk has previously expressed support for removing foreign governments in pursuit of his corporate interests. In July 2020, he was challenged online with a claim that Washington had orchestrated a coup against Bolivian President Evo Morales so that his electric car company, Tesla, could secure access to the country’s rich lithium reserves. Musk responded with a post: “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

Nicaragua has formally severed diplomatic relations with Israel, accusing it of “genocide” and military aggression in the Palestinian territories.

According to a resolution passed by the National Assembly on Friday, the break in relations is a response to the “brutal genocide that the fascist and war criminal government of Israel continues to commit against the Palestinian people.”

President Daniel Ortega has instructed the Foreign Ministry to “abide” by parliament’s request and cut diplomatic relations with Israel, according to Vice President Rosario Murillo.

“We respect the Israeli people who demand the cessation of this massacre, barbarism, and crimes committed by the nefarious Zionist government and army,” the Nicaraguan parliamentary resolution said, calling the Israeli government “an enemy of humanity, which intends to spread its barbarism throughout the Middle East, endangering world peace and security.”

(archive link)

Filed under: Decoupling is real and happening AND India is not really a friend to the global south but happy to join with the US to backstab China for some very limited gain of its own

New Delhi and Washington are seeking to reduce their dependence on China, which dominates the lithium supply chain

India and the US have signed an agreement to “expand and diversify” critical supply chains for lithium, cobalt and other critical minerals, New Delhi announced on Friday.

Both countries are seeking to overcome their reliance on China, which dominates the global supply of lithium, a mineral essential for electric vehicle manufacture and the clean energy economy.

The pact, signed on Thursday by Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, who is visiting Washington this week, and his US counterpart Gina Raimondo, will “leverage complementary strengths to ensure greater resilience in the critical minerals sector.”

The two countries are focusing on “identifying equipment, services, policies, and best practices” to explore, extract, process, and refine critical minerals.”

According to Reuters, Goyal described the partnership as multi-dimensional, encompassing open supply chains for materials, technology development, and investment flows to promote green energy. He noted that the US and India will need to engage with third countries, including mineral-rich nations in Africa and South America.

India has been exploring ways to boost lithium production, both domestically and in third countries. New Delhi is particularly looking to Africa to meet its mineral demands, especially Zambia, Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, and Mozambique. Several African nations have approached the Indian government, offering access to their resources in exchange for repayment of part of their development loans.

[...]

China currently controls nearly 70% of the global lithium supply, and larger shares of cobalt, graphite, and manganese – other minerals vital for green technology. India recently discovered lithium reserves in Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Jammu and Kashmir, but does not yet produce lithium domestically, relying entirely on imports.

This comes off the back of the EU signaling it has the votes and has agreed to implement tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in the bloc. China's electric vehicle makers are doomed to be excluded from the core west (population 750 million - 1 billion depending on if all countries eventually are pulled in or just EU+US) and confined to China and limited sales in various developed and semi-developed regions in the global.

(Archive link)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20775855

Israel conducted an unprecedented airstrike on Beirut’s southern Dahiya district on Friday evening in what Israeli media described as an attempt to assassinate Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hasan Nasrallah.

The strike targeted and leveled six residential buildings. The Israeli army’s spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, released a video statement shortly after the strike claiming that the buildings contained Hezbollah’s “Central Headquarters.” Lebanese media reported that over 10 Israeli missiles were dropped in less than three minutes on the complex, situated in the Haret Hreik area in Dahiya. The Israeli army’s radio said that Israeli F-35 fighter jets dropped 2000-pound bunker-buster bombs on the residential buildings.

Lebanese first responders continue rescue efforts to pull out survivors from under the rubble. As of the time of writing, the number of civilians killed has not been specified.

The Israeli army’s radio quoted a military source saying that any person who was present in the targeted buildings “will not come out alive.” The Lebanese Health Minister, Firas al-Abyad, said that some of the buildings targeted were “full of civilian residents.”

The video-sharing platform TikTok has deleted three Arabic-language accounts of RT, without explanation. The measure comes as the Israel-Hezbollah conflict has spurred fears of a regional escalation.

RT Arabic, RT Online and RT Newsroom accounts vanished on Tuesday evening. The Spanish-language Actualidad RT account has also been blocked without explanation.

They had survived last Saturday’s purge of accounts belonging to RT International, Sputnik Afrique, Sputnik Africa, Sputnik International, Sputnik Brasil, Sputnik Mundo, Sputnik Indonesia and Sputnik Serbia. TikTok has not yet commented on the latest development.

[...]

TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, which has come under intense pressure from US authorities in recent months. Under a law enacted in April, the social network could be banned if ByteDance does not sell it to a US owner within a year.

I don't get this. Why give in to pressure from the US when they've already passed a law to kick you out?

It's not like currying favor with a ban coming from an executive branch organization that can be reversed with the stroke of one person's pen, this is not something that will be reversed because it can be trivially blocked in congress.

This is not good.

I know Bytedance /=/ China or the CPC but this is exactly why the US wants control of Tiktok in the first place, to control global narratives, to ban who they want, to alter algorithms to push US state dept propaganda, this is just a few steps short of that.

And they're functionally giving it to them by going through with these bans which would seem to impact users outside the US. So at this rate they might as well sell to the US. At this rate I hope they do get forcibly shut down and removed from the US so they have no reason at all to do this kind of censorship. (I mean ideally I'd prefer they win at the SCOTUS and get to continue operating and give the US the finger on censoring global operations).

At the very least they should split operations off and make the US/NATO operations one distinct legal entity, then another entity that operates outside those regions that the west have no plausible control over which wouldn't have any reason to ban these non-western counter-narrative sources.

Italian and Czech customers of Indian ammunition makers were diverting their shipments to the government Kiev, and Moscow has protested this to New Delhi at least twice.

The article is strangely written, it's a non-denial-denial on the part of India, they're acting offended but saying they've broken no agreements with Russia and didn't do anything wrong but they're not denying that they're shipping the Ukrainians shells.

The Reuters article in question via archive

https://www.rt.com/russia/603929-ukraine-concentration-camps-kursk/

Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk Region have rounded up local civilians and placed them in “something like concentration camps,” RIA Novosti reported on Thursday, citing a Russian Foreign Ministry report.

When Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into Kursk Region last month, thousands of civilians were evacuated or themselves fled deeper into the Russian heartland. Some however, including elderly people and those with disabilities, were unable to leave, and their settlements fell under Ukrainian control.

According to a new report seen by RIA Novosti, those left behind were subjected to detention methods synonymous with World War II.

“In a number of territories controlled by militants, something like ‘concentration camps’ were created, which civilians who did not want or were unable to leave the territory captured by the enemy were forcibly driven into,” the report said, according to RIA Novosti. These claims were based on eyewitness accounts collected by the Russian Red Cross in Kursk.

Of those detained, between 70 and 100 were taken to a school in Sudzha, where some of the fiercest fighting took place. Once there, they were subjected to psychological abuse and presented to foreign journalists, RIA Novosti claimed.

https://www.rt.com/news/603943-taiwan-beijing-navy-seal/

The US Navy’s elite special operations unit, SEAL Team Six, has been training to “help Taiwan” in case of a “Chinese invasion,” according to the Financial Times. The unit is most famous for the 2011 mission that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.

SEAL Team Six “has been planning and training for a Taiwan conflict for more than a year at Dam Neck, its headquarters at Virginia Beach about 250km south-east of Washington,” FT reported on Thursday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.

So far, the only hints of US plans for a potential conflict around Taiwan have come from Admiral Samuel Paparo, the head of the Indo-Pacific Command, in an interview in June.

“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities so I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything,” Paparo told the Washington Post.

https://www.rt.com/business/603925-china-western-investment-drop/

Western firms pulling back from China

Declining economic growth and the rise of other manufacturing centers in Asia are slowing investment, lobby groups claim

China is gradually losing its appeal as an investment destination for Western companies, according to reports released this week by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China and the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

The two lobby groups conducted surveys among investors and owners of businesses in China. According to their findings, many respondents have been consolidating their operations in the country and no longer see the Chinese market as a primary investment destination.

An annual poll by the American Chamber of Commerce shows that the number of businesses considering China as their top investment destination has dropped to 47%, the lowest in 25 years. A survey by the EU chamber shows that only 15% of respondents named China as their top investment destination, while previously the figure stood at 20%.

“Some European Chamber members have begun both siloing their China supply chains and operations, and shifting investments previously planned for China to other markets to increase supply chain resilience, take advantage of comparatively lower labor costs and hedge against future geopolitical shocks,” the EU lobby group stated in its report.

Experts from both lobbies suggest that one of the main drivers behind the trend is the slump in China’s economic growth. According to official figures, China’s growth slowed to the worst pace in five quarters in April-June this year, at 4.7%. Other factors are intensifying competition from local companies and the appearance of alternative manufacturing centers in Asia.

For instance, around 20% of the businesses surveyed by the US business lobby said they would be slashing investment in China this year, while 40% stated they would be redirecting it to countries such as India and Vietnam.

Many of those surveyed said China’s trade tensions with the US were also affecting investor confidence. Washington has been tightening economic restrictions and hiking tariffs on Chinese goods since 2018, when then-President Donald Trump launched a trade war with Beijing. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, has taken a similarly hostile approach, despite Beijing’s repeated warnings that these measures violate the principles of fair trade. Around 70% of respondents in the survey by the American chamber called US measures targeting China the greatest challenge to the country’s economic growth.

I have some thoughts on this I'll post as a comment. But basically the predictions of their re-shoring being a total bust were nonsense. It doesn't matter at the end of the day if their efficiency is only 80% of that of their fabs on the island, if it's enough to be part of what supplies the entire west with all they need for laptops and smartphones and gaming consoles then it's enough to no longer need that occupied part of China or care what their actions taken against China result in as far as consequences.

(archive link)

The US government has confiscated an airplane reportedly used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, claiming it violates Washington’s sanctions against Caracas, CNN reported on Monday.

The US has charged Maduro with drug trafficking and refused to recognize his victory in the last two Venezuelan presidential elections.

“Seizing the foreign head of state’s plane is unheard-of for criminal matters. We’re sending a clear message here that no one is above the law, no one is above the reach of US sanctions,” an unnamed Washington official told CNN, which first reported the story on Monday.

According to CNN, the plane is worth around $13 million and was seized in cooperation with Dominican authorities.