Current interim leader of Canada's NDP Don Davies in 2019:

"So honoured to bring greetings on behalf of Parliament to mark April 30, Journey to Freedom Day. We remember all those who lost their lives fleeing oppression in Vietnam, and are inspired by the ideals of freedom, democracy and human rights."

Then, in 2023, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memorandum asserted that “radical-traditionalist” Catholics were domestic-terrorism threats and suggested infiltrating Catholic churches as “threat mitigation.” This later-retracted FBI memorandum cited as support evidence propaganda from highly partisan sources.

Tradcaths about to be infested by the dumbest leftist meme ever, calling everyone a fed, now they won't get anything done.

The composition of syria's new government

I'm hearing that it's literally the same as the Idlib government they've been doing for years and it's supposed to stay in place until March 2025

"...not a single minister from an ethnic or religious minority, no women, and not even other opposition factions"

"See russia was defeated militarily like we're doing in ukraine"

That's just not what's happening

Branko Milanovic's take on Trump/Democrats and Russia/China

The conventional view is that Trump is good for Russia and bad for China.

The truth is the oposite. He is bad for Russia b/c he will be unable, due to general opposition to him, to end the war in Ukraine.

He is good for China b/c he will not wage a (crazy) ideological war that Biden did, but will be a transactional president.

China can live much more comfortably with a US president who insists that they should buy more soya beans than with the president who wants to overthrow their political system.

The west's favorite 1 party state that had to become a 2 party state since 2009 has now been forced to become a 3 party state

More info from the british state controlled media:

China will "gradually raise" its retirement age for the first time since the 1950s, as the country confronts an ageing population and a dwindling pension budget.

The top legislative body on Friday approved proposals to raise the statutory retirement age from 50 to 55 for women in blue-collar jobs, and from 55 to 58 for females in white-collar jobs.

Men will see an increase from 60 to 63.

China's current retirement ages are among the lowest in the world.

According to the plan passed on Friday, the change will set in from 1 January 2025, with the respective retirement ages raised every few months over the next 15 years, said Chinese state media.

EDIT: Even more info:

Retiring before the statutory age will not be allowed, state news agency Xinhua reported, although people can delay their retirement by no more than three years.

Starting 2030, employees will also have to make more contributions to the social security system in order to receive pensions. By 2039, they would have to clock 20 years of contributions to access their pensions.

The state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in 2019 that the country's main state pension fund will run out of money by 2035 - and that was an estimate before the Covid-19 pandemic, which hit China's economy hard.

The plan to raise retirement ages and adjust the pension policy was based on "a comprehensive assessment of the average life expectancy, health conditions, the population structure, the level of education and workforce supply in China," Xinhua reported.

Fuck it here's the article

Small 5.3 earthquake in central-south portugal today, I happened to catch it because I woke up at 5:10 to urinate, so far no big damages.

Last big destructive earthquake was an 8 in 1969 and historically everyone learns about the 1755 on in school and some people have kind of a prepper "the next big one is coming" mentality because of it.

Fuck the whole twitter community note system, any political figure going against the fraud narrative in spanish and portuguese language twitter is getting hit with "uhm achstually there's fraud"

EDIT: Political commentator on portuguese television right now: "Venezuelans WISHED they lived under Salazar or Marcelo's dictatorship" instead of Maduro

I got a question for everyone here, in your country/region/state is the 4 day work week being talked about very often in the media or by center-left political figures?

I ask because for whatever reason this shit has really taken off here in Portugal to the point where they got my old former maoist uncle telling me "you're only going to be working 4 days soon!".

And I mean yeah I'm all for it, except that the way it's being pushed is not with "fuck the bosses we deserve to work less" and an associated mass movement (the communist friendly labour union approves it but they don't have the power alone to do it), it's with very technocratic arguments about productivity increases, sometimes mentioning the human worth of free time and recurring to the handful of limited experiments which are always successful, basically in the logic of "no class war here this is actually good for everyone!", which I don't know if that's true, feels like employers would 100% get fucked with this (unless they get to cut wages or increase work hours).

I already mentioned some of the reasons I'm skeptical this will ever actually be implemented anywhere, but another big one is that here in Portugal it's implicit in this idea of the 4 day work week that it has to be the center-left (often much closer to the center than the left) "socialist" party which has been in power for 9 years (and might get booted in next sunday's elections), and this is crazy because there's no way they would actually do this it doesn't matter how many studies are comissioned saying it's great policy that would favour anyone, like, WE WILL WORK LESS, idk how this can be discussed technocratically yes I'm sure some professions (mine included but probably not my way of working specifically) will 100% probably have increased productivity, but will everyone? To the point where the right and employers actually accept this? I can't see it.

So is the 4 day work week being discussed and debated positively in your country or is it still a fringe left idea?

Edit: Thank you all for the responses!

Radio War Nerd had Ben Aris on again to recap how the sanctions war is affecting Russia, the fastest growing economy in Europe.

Nuff said

Felix in the replies: "I’m crying at how beautiful this is. I support AI now. all I have ever wanted is for the show to be credibly portrayed as a Chinese podcast"