news

these fucking nerds blocked IbnRiad in Europe

Apparently Donnie had an even larger haul from a fund raising event yesterday(?). Love that one of the things that's most being talked about in this election is the pissing contest that the rich mega donors are having.

Some light Korean history I'll make occasionally posts of

Joseon Era (1392 - 1897)

Korea's first encounter with America, but they didn't know it at the time.

1867, Summer period, the Sherman Incident

Aug 9 to 16

An armed U.S. merchant ship, a centerboard schooner named The General Sherman, sets sail to attempt to force Joseon (Korea) to open up to foreign trade with its holds filled to the brim with cotton cloth, glass, tin plates, and other items bought from China. The captain and crew also had a secret objective of using the opportunity to trade to loot the royal tombs that lie north-east of Pyongyang.

Even though the ship flew the U.S flag, there were only three to five 'westerners' onboard. The Americans owner of the ship Preston, captain Paige, first mate wilson, a welsh missionary Thomas, and some nameless brit. The crew primarily consisted of around a dozen Chinese and a handful of Malay sailors.

At this time Korea, ruled by prince Yi Ha Eung acting as regent to the young king Gojong, was known as the “Hermit Kingdom” due to its isolationist policies. Policies stemming from Korea being invaded many times over the past years by Chinese and Japanese bandits, soldiers, looters, etc.

Shortly prior to the American incident, the Korean kingdom had rebuffed an invasion attempt by the French who had mounted a punitive expedition on Korea for their persecution of Korean converts to catholicism and the death of seven French missionaries. That last bit is important so keep it in your head for a short while.

Aug 16 to 31

The General Sherman stopped at the mouth of the Taedong River at a government checkpoint, but instead of waiting for the local officials to message the kingdom officials, the captain ordered the ship to continue upriver towards Pyongyang, making occasionally stops for the welsh missionary to step off the boat and proselytizing villagers and passing out bibles.

The governor of Pyongyang dispatched his adjutant general with a small crew to meet and provide food to the crew in order to try to slow them down and hopefully persuade them to leave instead while the governor went to meet with the Regent.

The Adjutant General's journey would take a few days but the meeting with the regent was more faster and his decision more severe. The foreign ship must leave or the crew was to be slaughtered to the last man. The reason for this decision was because the regent thought they were another French warship sent on a punitive expedition and decisive action must be taken to protect the capital from being bombarded by their guns.

Aug 31 to Sept 2

The General Sherman continues upriver until it runs aground in shallow water and becomes stuck. Unknown to them, it was due to rainwater swelling the river larger than its normal size that caused the crew mistake the amount of maneuvering room they had and leading to their current predicament of taking a break in a sandbar

While trying to unstick the ship, some of the crew were dispatched for forage for supplies on one of the ship's smaller boats while another was sent to recon further upriver. Coincidentally the smaller boat that was dispatched for foraging would encounter Pyongyang's adjutant general and his men and decided it was a good idea to take him hostage.

All the while this was going on, the scout boat sent north got shot at and returned back to the General Sherman while the crew and Pyongyang militia would skirmish with each other for days culminating in the ship opening fire on a protesting crowd of Korean villagers with their 12 pound cannons murdering 7 or so.

This would lead to the Korean militia trying to improvise a cannon-armed turtle ship (a precursor to the then-modern western iron clads designed by Korea that saw great use in repelling Japanese invading ships in prior centuries) unfortunately the Korean cannon did not have enough power to penetrate the hull of the general sherman and was repelled shortly after. The decision was then made to launch fire ships at the American ship until it caught fire and sunk.

The first two fire ships failed but the third one succeeded in setting the general sherman alight with all its cargo. The last of the crew that hadn't been burned to death abandoned ship. Many drowned before reaching the shore and the few who did would shortly join the rest of their dead crew after being beaten to death by a mob of angry Koreans.

This incident would be covered by the kingdom of Korea as another skirmish between the kingdom and France. The U.S government would inquire about the missing ship and its crew to which the diplomatic department of the kingdom would reply saying they had no idea what happened to the ship and that there were no Americans in Korea.

The loss of the merchant ship general sherman would give the U.S government enough reason to launch an "investigation" expedition into Korea that would lead to u.s forces temporarily capturing several fortresses over the 'disappeared' General Sherman. But that's enough for now.

Security forces repel warlord’s attempt to storm Haitian presidential palace

Troops thwart push led by Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier to invade unoccupied residence as firefights break out in Port-au-Prince.

At least one policeman was shot after he and other officers were forced to flee an armoured car that was later set on fire, according to local media reports. Heavy gunfire has erupted in the downtown area of Haiti’s capital as police battled gang members near the National Palace for several hours.

Scores of people were trapped by the gunfire in downtown Port-au-Prince on Monday, while dozens of others managed to flee. One man who declined to provide his name out of fear for his life told The Associated Press that he was stuck for five hours until police rescued him.

“It’s the armoured car that covered us (so we could) leave the area,” he said. The latest gunbattle comes more than a month after gangs began attacking key government infrastructure.

Gangs have torched police stations, opened fire on the main international airport and stormed the country’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates. The violence has somewhat subsided in certain areas since erupting at the end of February, but gunfire still echoes daily.

At least 1,554 people have been reported killed up to 22 March and another 826 injured, according to the UN. The situation forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to announce last month he would resign as soon as a transitional council is created.

Henry, who was on an official trip to Kenya to push for the UN-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country, remains locked out of Haiti. The proposed transitional council of nine members, which has yet to be formally established, will be responsible for choosing a new prime minister and council of ministers.

On Monday night, Haiti’s government issued a statement raising concerns over its creation, saying the current council of ministers "stumbled over proven constitutional and legal questions. The Constitution and Haitian laws nowhere provide for this institution.”

The government noted ministers met Monday to talk about the transitional council and shared the draft decree with legal experts so they “could finalise it and make it compliant with the laws of the republic.”

The current council of ministers also plans to create a joint commission to oversee the handover of responsibilities. Haiti’s government noted Henry received a list of nine people nominated to the transitional council on Friday and a draft decree establishing the council on Sunday.

Settler-on-settler violence:
https://nitter.poast.org/WAR3138/status/1776696650708189405

Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah is now live: https://rumble.com/v4mulmw-presstv-live.html

I have made a post with other links and images for International Quds Day here. https://hexbear.net/post/2219502

Seeing the cringiest shit on WeChat short videos praising Yellen for being able to use chopsticks at some restaurant in Guangzhou. One comment (seemingly unironically) calling her a 'China expert'.

screenshot under spoiler tag

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A real smorgasbord of content for the news thread on nakedcapitalism.com today

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/04/china-prepares-in-central-asia-to-withstand-any-western-isolation-efforts.html

Article on logistical ties between China and Central asia/russia/Afghanistan and other efforts China is making to avoid isolation in event of world war. This is a good, broad survey of different aspects of west and east Asian integration and (potential) proxy war maneuvering. Note also the importance of Xinjiang as a jump off point from China to all these places.

The US, of course, realizes the importance of Central Asia as well, but what can the Americans really offer? Even RAND admits that “the United States is unlikely to outspend China or even Russia” in Central Asia. Case in point: last year Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and announced that the Biden administration would add $20 million to the Economic Resilience Initiative in Central Asia (ERICEN). That brought the total funding up to $50 million since it was launched in September 2022. [1] The total value for Chinese projects in Central Asia is more than $63 billion.

Related is this more detailed and specific article about yellen going to China. Frankly I didn't get as much out of this as the above, but it provides some analysis of the recent xi-Biden phone call and some tea leaf reading.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/04/yellen-trip-to-china-biden-administration-presumption-and-cluelessness-on-display.html

Real Progressives Live: Putin’s Russia with Esha Krishnaswamy (~2 hours)

Note: Real Progressives is run by a small group of MMT (Modern Monetary Theory)-literate American Marxist-Leninists that aims to teach MMT as an economics theory to the wider audience (skewing boomer-ish demographics). They have good position on Stalin, geopolitics i.e. China/Russia, and generally supportive of LGBT struggles (at least from my brief interaction with them online since it’s not a topic often brought up).

They run occasional webinars with economics experts and anti-imperialists, and this most recent webinar is about Russia (the title said Putin’s Russia, but it encompasses the Soviet history and also went a bit into China near the end as well - some interesting arguments about China also).

I do think that Esha’s presentation was a bit all over the place, and her answers were sometimes too brief to be satisfactory or she didn’t know too much about the subject (especially when an audience asks how the monetary theory of the USSR was similar to MMT, which I thought even I could have answered better).

But generally I learned a few things about the USSR and Russia I didn’t know about, so if you have an hour or two to spend, take a listen.

Brazilian diplomats give Israel Kratz a nickname.

Israel Katz has come to be called "Chancellor TikTok", in reference to Katz's penchant for playing with diplomacy and using social media to attack those he considers his enemies. A TikTok politician is usually someone who only does things to virtue signaling for their supporters.

The Israeli chancellor has earned the nickname since the beginning of the problem with the Brazilian government, resulting from Lula's comparison of the war against Palestine with what Hitler committed against the Jews.

On Friday (5/4), Katz attacked Lula again. The president made a mistake this week, during the Conference on the Rights of the Child, by saying that 12.3 million Palestinian children died in the Gaza Strip, when he actually meant 12,300. In reaction, Katz wrote on social media: "There should be a law obliging anyone who wants to become president to learn how to count."

Katz had already declared Lula "persona non grata" in February, after the president made the comparison with Hitler. After that, Brazilian Twitter users spammed all of Katz's posts with "Vampetaço" (naked photos of soccer player "Vampeta").

I refuse to believe that false flags are a thing (I haven’t looked into the idea because I’m scared) but I just saw a story from local news outlets about how the department of homeland security is warning people to watch out for potential “Moscow-related attacks” on large gatherings

Isn’t there a big eclipse coming up

China central bank to set up $70 billion tech re-lending programme

Elon Musk causes a diplomatic problem in Brazil. X (Twitter) may be banned in Brazil.

After threats from Elon Musk, Brazil's supreme court judge Alexandre Moraes orders an investigation into the billionaire's conduct and orders Twitter not to disobey court orders

'Social networks are not lawless land! Social networks are no man's land,' the judge wrote in capital letters in his decision.

After successive attacks from the businessman, Moraes' decision came out in the middle of the night on Sunday. According to the judge, Musk committed the irregular practices of using social networks to spread disinformation and destabilize institutions of the democratic rule of law:

"In the present hypothesis, therefore, the use of illegal mechanisms by 'X' is characterized; as well as the presence of strong indications of intent by the CEO of the social network 'X', Elon Musk, in the criminal instrumentalization previously pointed out and investigated in several inquiries," wrote Moraes.

After threats from billionaire Elon Musk, owner of the social network X (formerly Twitter), Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) ordered that the businessman's conduct be investigated in a new inquiry. He also included Musk among those investigated in the existing inquiry into digital militias.

Moraes also ordered the X network not to disobey any orders from the Brazilian courts. He also imposed a fine of R$100,000 for each profile he reactivates irregularly.

Moraes said he saw signs of obstruction of justice and incitement to crime in Musk's behavior in recent days. On Saturday (6), Musk attacked Moraes' decisions in the investigations led by the minister. The businessman also threatened to reactivate the profiles of X users blocked by the courts.

Moraes is the rapporteur of investigations such as:

• Digital militias: which investigates actions orchestrated on networks to spread false information and hate speech, with the aim of undermining institutions and democracy.

• The January 8 case: which investigates the attempted coup in Brazil by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

In the course of these investigations, over the last few years, Moraes ordered the social networks to block the accounts of some of those being investigated. According to the minister, they were using the platforms to commit the irregular practices under investigation.

Musk decided to confront the minister. On Saturday, he published the following provocation above a post by Moraes on X: "Why are you demanding so much censorship in Brazil?".

Then, still on Saturday, Musk threatened that the platform would reactivate the blocked accounts, in contempt of court, even if, according to Musk, this would cost the company closure in Brazil and damage profits.

This Sunday, the billionaire posted a picture of Moraes and said that he is the "Darth Vader" of Brazil, in reference to the villain from the Star Wars film franchise.

After successive attacks from the businessman, Moraes' decision came out in the middle of the night on Sunday. According to the minister, Musk committed the irregular practices of using social networks to spread disinformation and destabilize institutions of the democratic rule of law.

He also said that platforms must follow the Constitution, under penalty of being held accountable for their actions. For Moraes, X and Musk affront Brazil's sovereignty.

"The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, the incitement to crime, the public threat of disobedience to court orders and the future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect Brazil's sovereignty and reinforce the connection of the malicious criminal instrumentalization of the activities of the former Twitter, now X," said the minister.

Musk's statements sparked backlash among politicians and authorities. The Minister of the Attorney General's Office (AGU), Jorge Messias, said that Brazil needs to approve regulation of social networks to prevent "billionaires living abroad" from attacking the democratic rule of law.

"It is urgent to regulate social networks. We can't live in a society where billionaires living abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law by breaking court orders and threatening our authorities. Social peace is non-negotiable," Messias wrote.

João Brant, Secretary for Digital Policies at the President's Secretariat for Communication, also defended the regulation of networks. He also said that Musk, in writing his attacks on Moraes, despises Brazilian justice.

"Elon Musk's attitude shows his contempt for Brazilian justice. He responds politically to the buzz of the last few days by rehashing old decisions and takes the opportunity to make agitation and extreme right-wing propaganda. Of course, there may be different opinions about the decisions of the Supreme Court and the TSE, but that's not what this is about. Musk decided to defend coup plotters and escalate the issue for political (possibly also commercial) reasons," said Brant.

The president of the Federal Court of Auditors, Bruno Dantas, said that "freedom of expression is a fundamental right that has never, anywhere in the world, meant licentiousness to break the law or attack a country's institutions".

Minister Paulo Pimenta, from the Presidency's Social Communication Secretariat, commented on Moraes' decision. He said that Musk would not intimidate Brazil.

"We will not be intimidated. Our country is sovereign and no one is going to impose their authoritarian will and enforce the logic that money makes their 'business model' above the Federal Constitution," he wrote.

Through cooperation between the Brazilian Federal Police and the FBI, US authorities can serve search and seizure warrants at the homes of the investigated Elon Musk, owner of Twitter.

The order could be issued at any time by Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Federal Supreme Court.

Several countries have expressed support for the Mexican government and condemned the invasion of the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, which was ordered by Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa.

Ecuador received no support, not even from the United States. The United States condemned the action and called for the two countries to go to the negotiating table and resolve the problems through diplomacy.

Countries like Spain and Portugal also condemned the invasion. Also this Sunday, an image circulated on Ecuadorian social networks, in which a government document states that it would ban the exit and entry of private planes to and from Mexico.

The Ecuadorian government responded hours later, through the Minister of Transportation and Public Works, saying that the image was false, and that the government had not made such a ban.

He also said that the government would open an investigation into the matter. The Ecuadorean government later went public and acknowledged that the document about the ban on flights to and from Mexico was real. The government also said that the document should not have been leaked, and called for the resignation of the person responsible.

https://streamable.com/md7yp9