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Bulletins and News Discussion from November 18th to November 24th, 2024 - Could It Soon Be Azover? - COTW: Ukraine

back in my map era, we're ukrainemaxxing right now

Declarations of the imminent doom of Ukraine are a news megathread specialty, and this is not what I am doing here - mostly because I'm convinced that whenever we do so, the war extends another three months to spite us. Ukraine has been in an essentially apocalyptic crisis for over a year now after the failure of the 2023 counteroffensive, unable to make any substantial progress and resigned to merely being a persistent nuisance (and arms market!) as NATO fights to the last Ukrainian. In this context, predicting a terminal point is difficult, as things seem to always be going so badly that it's hard to understand how and why they fight on. In every way, Ukraine is a truly shattered country, barely held together by the sheer combined force of Western hegemony. And that hegemony is weakening.

I therefore won't be giving any predictions of a timeframe for a Ukrainian defeat, but the coming presidency of Trump is a big question mark for the conflict. Trump has talked about how he wishes for the war to end and for a deal to be made with Putin, but Trump also tends to change his mind on an issue at least three or four times before actually making a decision, simply adopting the position of who talked to him last. And, of course, his ability to end the war might be curtailed by a military-industrial complex (and various intelligence agencies) that want to keep the money flowing.

The alignment of the US election with the accelerating rate of Russian gains is pretty interesting, with talk of both escalation and de-escalation coinciding - the former from Biden, and the latter from Trump. Russia very recently performed perhaps the single largest aerial attack of Ukraine of the entire war, striking targets across the whole country with missiles and drones from various platforms. In response, the US is talking about allowing Ukraine to hit long-range targets in Russia (but the strategic value of this, at this point, seems pretty minimal).

Additionally, Russia has made genuine progress in terms of land acquisition. We aren't talking about endless and meaningless battles over empty fields anymore. Some of the big Ukrainian strongholds that we've been spending the last couple years speculating over - Chasiv Yar, Kupiansk, Orikhiv - are now being approached and entered by Russian forces. The map is actually changing now, though it's hard to tell as Ukraine is so goddamn big.

Attrition has finally paid off for Russia. An entire generation of Ukrainians has been fed into the meat grinder. Recovery will take, at minimum, decades - more realistically, the country might be permanently ruined, until that global communist revolution comes around at least. And they could have just made a fucking deal a month into the war.

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  • General notice: looking for new news mods. If you're interested, go to the thingy Carcosa posted and fill out a mod application.

    I'll generally prefer newshead regulars who are temperate, thoughtful, and generally deliberative in their nature.

    Generally speaking the role mostly involves reminding/censuring you nerds to include CWs and/or NSFWs to news posts whenever you forget to do so, telling people to knock off their bickering if they argue with each other and use the report button as an "I disagree with this person so you should smite them, and of course my personal favorite pastime of smiting the rare troll or bot that pops up to try and fling shit. If you can think of additional ways to help improve the general quality of the comm that will always be welcome, but generally speaking it's to help make sure there's more hands available in case me or carpy are busy doing things.

    You'll still be held to equal standards to other newsheads. You lot have already seen how carpy and 72t, may he rest in power, behave here. That's the standard I'd like to see kept.

    (P.s that offer also extends to the other comms I mod.)

    (P.p.s I know 72 is still here. And yes, he's always welcome to come back so don't even think of doing a cheeky "I nominate 72t as new comm mod!")

    (P.p.p.s: PigPoopBalls. That is all.)

  • https://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1858019192370507904

    Wow, looks like Xi was extremely straightforward during his meeting with Biden, probably the most he's ever officially been in a meeting with a US president.

    According to the Chinese readout (https://www.guancha.cn/internation/2024_11_17_755645.shtml) here's what he told Biden were the 7 "lessons of the past 4 years that need to be remembered":

    1. "There must be correct strategic understanding. The 'Thucydides Trap' is not historical destiny, a 'new Cold War' cannot and should not be fought, containment of China is unwise, undesirable, and will not succeed."
    1. "Words must be trustworthy and actions must be fruitful. A person cannot stand without credibility. China always follows through on its words, but if the U.S. side always says one thing and does another, it is very detrimental to America's image and damages mutual trust."
    1. "Treat each other as equals. In exchanges between two major countries like China and the United States, neither side can reshape the other according to their own wishes, nor can they suppress the other based on so-called 'position of strength,' let alone deprive the other of legitimate development rights to maintain their own leading position."
    1. "Red lines and bottom lines cannot be challenged. As two major countries, China and the United States inevitably have some contradictions and differences, but they cannot harm each other's core interests, let alone engage in conflict and confrontation. The One China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués are the political foundation of bilateral relations and must be strictly observed. Taiwan issue, democracy and human rights, development path, and development rights are China's four red lines, which cannot be challenged. These are the most important guardrails and safety nets for China-US relations."
    1. "There should be more dialogue and cooperation. Under current circumstances, the common interests between China and the United States have not decreased but increased. Whether in areas of economy and trade, agriculture, drug control, law enforcement, public health, or in facing global challenges such as climate change and artificial intelligence, as well as international hotspot issues, China-US cooperation is needed. Both sides should extend the list of cooperation, make the cooperation cake bigger, and achieve win-win cooperation."
    1. "Respond to people's expectations. The development of China-US relations should always focus on the wellbeing of both peoples and gather the strength of both peoples. Both sides should build bridges for personnel exchanges and cultural communication, and also remove interference and obstacles, not artificially create a 'chilling effect.'"
    1. "Demonstrate great power responsibility. China and the United States should always consider the future and destiny of humanity, take responsibility for world peace, provide public goods for the world, and play a positive role in world unity, including engaging in positive interaction, avoiding mutual consumption, and not coercing other countries to take sides."

    Funnily, all this is summarized in the official US readout (https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/readout-of-president-joe-bidens-meeting-with-president-xi-jinping-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china-3/) with this short sentence: "The two leaders reviewed the bilateral relationship over the past four years". Talk about an understatement 😅. The language compared to the readout of the last Xi-Biden meeting in San Francisco one year ago is noticeably more forthright, especially on the U.S.'s lack of trustworthiness ("if the U.S. side always says one thing and does another..."). Looks like he's getting very frustrated with U.S. duplicity... The 4 red lines he enumerates are also new (not new individually as they've each been mentioned before, but packaging them together as "four red lines" and explicitly labeling them as such in a president-level diplomatic readout is new)

    ...

    With the red lines on "Democracy and human rights" and "Development path/system", it looks like China is effectively telling the U.S. it will not humor them anymore in discussions about its internal system and so-called "human rights", and that it will consider any U.S. initiative aimed at interfering with China's internal affairs or otherwise shape China as hostile actions on the same level as Taiwan. This is also clear with Xi telling Biden that "neither side can reshape the other according to their own wishes".

    On development rights Xi states that "the Chinese people's right to development cannot be deprived or ignored" and criticizes how "while all countries have national security needs, the concept shouldn't be overgeneralized or used as an excuse for malicious restrictions and suppression". He also said that "great power competition should not be the theme of the era; unity and cooperation are needed to overcome difficulties together. 'Decoupling and breaking chains" is not the solution; mutually beneficial cooperation is the path to common development. 'Small yards with high fences' is not befitting of great powers."

    In other words, he's telling Biden that he believes the U.S. is attempting to curtail China's development in the guise of national security, but that this is "an excuse for malicious restrictions and suppression" and a red line as China has a fundamental right to develop as any other country. This is all, of course, also signaling to the upcoming Trump administration. The fact these are "red lines" means they're non-negotiable regardless of who leads the US: he's telling Trump too that attempts to "reshape" China or restrict its development will be viewed as hostile actions. And the emphasis on US "saying one thing and doing another" also puts the future administration on notice that China will judge the US by its actions rather than its diplomatic statements.

    Conclusion: by framing these positions as "lessons learned" from the past four years, Xi is effectively closing the book on one approach to US-China relations - which he's obviously very critical about - and very clearly signaling to Trump a change is badly needed, particularly around the "4 red lines" and matching words with actions. The language is very confident, telling the U.S. they need to "treat each other as equals" and that they have no "position of strength" anymore. The US readout on this, as usual for the Biden administration, is very illustrative of exactly what Xi is complaining about: a complete disregard for China's stance on these issues and a refusal to engage with them, or even mention them at all. Not sure that "America first" Trump and the team of China hawks he put together will be much better...

  • Israel levelled multiple multi storey apartment buildings in Beirut, Lebanon last night/early this morning, and the scenes are apocalyptic. No evacuation order was given for this bombing, many were sleeping in the early hours of the morning when the buildings that they were sleeping in were destroyed. Hundreds of probable casualties.

    Daytime footage twitter and xcancel mirror

    Night search footage twitter and xcancel mirror

    Ground view of night search footage, to put the scale of destruction into perspective twitter and xcancel mirror

  • Educational post: here we will debunk the myth of China’s dollar-denominated bonds in Saudi Arabia for those who are interested in learning about how the system actually works, and those who need a little help with connecting the dots.

    A few months ago, some multipolar bloggers were jumping up and down about Saudi Arabia “ending its 50-year petrodollar contract” and how that is going to “end dollar hegemony” (I already wrote a whole post debunking that). Today we see the same people saying that China issuing dollar-denominated bonds in Saudi Arabia is actually genius and how that’s going to “end dollar hegemony”. So which one is it?

    The answer is neither, and far simpler than you think. But to even be able to answer this question, we need to learn a bit about the fundamentals of the financial system, and especially to debunk the many misconceptions about the role of US treasury.

    Don’t worry, I have deliberately stripped all technical jargons from this post, so anyone will be able to understand even if you know nothing about banking and finance. This post is meant to be educational - I firmly believe that learning about how the economy and the financial system operate can shield us from falling for right wing propaganda, and that is my goal of spending many hours writing this post here.

    First, let’s lay out the main misconceptions that have been perpetuated on social media about the China’s dollar bond in Saudi Arabia, and what questions do we need to answer:

    1. The misconception that the US government is financed by its treasury bonds (China is issuing dollar bonds at nearly the same rates, so investors will buy China bonds instead of US treasury bonds, so the US government can no longer finance its spending)
      • Question: What is the role of US treasuries?
    2. A wild extrapolation that a $2 billion bond issuance somehow serves as a prelude to China issuing a $100 billion dollar bond which will then subvert the entire US treasury market.
      • Question: What can a $100 billion dollar bond do if China issues that?
    3. The mental gymnastics involved to craft a narrative about why China issuing its bond in dollar in Saudi Arabia is actually good and that somehow is going to help the BRI countries pay back their dollar debt.
      • Questions: What is the intent behind China issuing dollar-denominated bond in Saudi Arabia? Can it really help Belt and Road countries pay back their dollar debt?

    Let’s go through this point by point.

    What is the role of US treasuries?

  • A guy on Iraqi Telegram went viral for trying to start a boycott campaign against businesses that employ non-Iraqis. He calls himself a far right Iraqi who is angry about Syrian and Lebanese people taking jobs from Iraqis. Literally every medium-sized restaurant has non-Iraqis working there lol. He's also mad that the football national team has a half-Pakistani player, because the advanced Semitic Iraqi race should not procreate with the lesser races. Everyone dunked on him and called him a loser, happy that this brainrot hasn't penetrated Iraq yet. His Telegram page made it to 500 followers before getting trolled to closure. Btw, I'm making an Iraq trip with my wife and the kid in the spring, you'll get a full report in the news mega when it's time.

  • 71-year old isntreali mythologist eliminated in Gaza. He fought against the resistance in the first intifada and dedicated his life to legitimizing the apartheid state. He will not be missed, rest in piss

  • BadEmpanada pointed out something very funny about Netanyahu/Gallant ICC arrest warrant. They used Biden's strongly-worded letter to Israel and the corresponding increase in aid as further evidence of Israel's crimes. It proves that Israel has the capacity to deliver food to Gaza but deliberately choses not to.

    The Chamber also noted that decisions allowing or increasing humanitarian assistance into Gaza were often conditional. They were not made to fulfil Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law or to ensure that the civilian population in Gaza would be adequately supplied with goods in need. In fact, they were a response to the pressure of the international community or requests by the United States of America. In any event, the increases in humanitarian assistance were not sufficient to improve the population’s access to essential goods.

    https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges

  • The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Korea wrote an article published on 10th of October.

    "A detestable criminal country that needs to be swept away in a day."

    Israel's genocidal campaign against Palestinians, which began in October last year, has continued year after year, and its means and methods have reached a point beyond human imagination, drawing the ire of the international community.

    According to Palestine's Wafa news agency, Israel's rogue regime, which has no regard for international law and humanitarian principles, recently shocked the world by devising a “bill” to restrict the activities of the UNRWA, with the aim of massacring innocent Palestinians once again.

    It is not enough that Israel has massacred more than 42,000 Palestinians and displaced more than 1.9 million Palestinians, more than 90% of the Palestinians in Gaza, in the past year since the outbreak of the Gaza crisis, but the Israeli criminal justice system's anti-humanitarian blockade of UNRWA, which is aimed at completely exterminating an entire people, is a heinous act of human rights abuses and a despicable war crime.

    The murderers, who are ruthlessly depriving people of their human rights, the most important of which is the right to survival, and plotting to cut off the last link of the refugees, and the unscrupulous human white elephants, who are toasting and laughing at the spectacle of bombing the inhabited areas of Gaza, are grossly violating humanity's right to survival and development by expanding the scope of mass destruction to neighboring countries.

    The international community is outraged that Israel, a dysfunctional country that ignores even the rudimentary notion of human rights and promotes extreme hateful ideas, and a country where criminals who take pleasure in human blood should never have existed on Earth in the first place.

    All justice- and peace-oriented nations and progressive movements must unite to firmly defend human justice, conscience, and world peace by decisively stopping Israel's criminal atrocities and expelling this cancerous cancer of human society from the face of the earth".

  • I've been reading about Morocco recently, mostly inspired by Rania's anti-Morocco posting here. I have a massive blindspot when it comes to the history of the Maghreb countries, I literally know nothing about these countries outside of the Sahara issue and the Algerian Liberation War. Very interesting history, but it's hard to come out with any conclusion other than wanting to Minecraft the entire royal family. The amount of collusion and treachery is ridiculous, disgusting state on all possible levels. I'll give them points for building nice infrastructure and making Morocco a generally nice place to live in, but all that progress doesn't happen without complete submission and humiliation to Western capital. We need a Morocco COTW theme in the near future so that I can shit on Morocco even more.

  • A spokesperson for the German regime said they will only definitely decide whether or not they would arrest Netanyahu or Gallant if/when they plan on coming to Germany, but he said arresting them would be "hard to imagine". tagesschau

    So they have definitely decided they will not arrest Netanyahu but don't want come right out and say that.

1766 comments