Testing a Hexbear-like thread for sharing and commenting on news. Might become a weekly thing if people like it 👀

Rules:

  • Include sources in (at least) every top-level comment
  • No clearly fake stories
  • That’s it for now
  • Xibucks arrive on the third Sunday of every month
  • Chay
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    10 months ago

    Brazil to Support the Entry of Venezuela to the BRICS

    “It is incredible and inexplicable that one country (the United States) imposes 900 sanctions on another country (Venezuela) just because they don’t like it,” Lula stressed.

    During the press conference held after a private meeting, Lula announced that he supports the admission of Venezuela to the BRICS, an international cooperation forum that includes the world’s largest emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

    The Brazilian president also recalled that he criticized the European and American rulers who recognized the opposition politician Juan Guaido as “president in charge of Venezuela.”

    Such a recognition was the consequence of a geopolitical “narrative” deliberately built against the South American country and its legitimate government.

    “President Maduro returns to Brazil after 8 years. I have fought with the U.S. For me, it was so absurd that people who defend democracy turn their backs on an elected person with his people. The prejudice against Venezuela is very great.”

    “Now, it is in your hands that Venezuela make its own narrative and go back to being a sovereign country where only its people, through a free vote, decide who should govern. Then our adversaries will have to apologize for the havoc they have caused done,” Lula told Maduro.

    • @Navaryn@lemmygrad.ml
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      510 months ago

      And then Iran, Argentina, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Egypt… BRICS will soon be controlling a vast majority of the global economy AND population. It’s exciting, we may actually live to see the end of western hegemony

  • Chay
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    10 months ago

    China urges NATO to respect Serbia’s sovereignty

    China urged the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to respect Serbia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and truly contribute to regional peace, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Tuesday during a regular press briefing.

    Regarding the escalating tensions in the region, Mao said that China is closely following the developments, adding that China supports Serbia’s effort to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

    The spokesperson vowed opposition to unilateral actions by the temporary institutions in Pristina and called on it to perform its duty of establishing an association/community of Serb majority municipalities.

      • Chay
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        610 months ago

        I think it can be a diplomatic boost for China if they solve this conflict in Europe, although I doubt they’ll get too involved.

        • @Navaryn@lemmygrad.ml
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          410 months ago

          China is too smart and cautious to get itself involved in such a conflict. They gave their token support to Serbia and that’s it - nobody in the CPC wants China to be seen as the one stirring up conflict in Europe or elsewhere.

          Same reason why they don’t (openly) support the NPA in the Philippines and they keep reiterating that they want a peaceful solution to the SMO. China cares about being seen as the reasonable mediator, someone countries can rely on to actually stop conflicts instead of escalating them like SOME countries do

  • Chay
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    1310 months ago

    Serbian military issues warning over Kosovo violence

    Belgrade would not stand by if the ethnic Albanian authorities in Kosovo start killing or displacing Serbs in the breakaway region, Defense Minister Milos Vucevic has warned. The statement came amid heated protest by Serbs in Kosovo over mayoral elections in several towns, which they have described as a travesty.

    Speaking to the public broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia on Wednesday, Vucevic assessed the risk of a violent escalation in the north of Kosovo as “big, probably the biggest possible.”

    Kosovo’s prime minister, Albin Kurti, and his “unilateral, illegal, illegitimate decisions” are what led to the current tensions in the region, according to Vucevic. He also accused Pristina of denying ethnic Serbs their basic human rights and freedoms.

    The minister pointed out that the Serbian military is “ready to carry out any task,” adding that Belgrade has defined any infringement against its “vital national and state interests” as a red line.

    “We are talking about scenarios where, God forbid, someone kills Serbs, that physical liquidation begins of our people by the Kosovo police, the expulsion of Serbs,” the Serbian official clarified.

    Vucevic emphasized that any such actions “would really be not only a red alarm, but also the moment when Serbia can’t just talk and sit idly by.”

  • Chay
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    1210 months ago

    Gustavo Petro Announces Colombia Will Rejoin Unasur

    “I have decided to reincorporate the country to Unasur by ratifying the treaty approved by Congress through a law and I have requested that it be called Association of South American Nations to guarantee pluralism and permanence in time,” Petro said via Twitter.

  • @knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
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    1210 months ago

    You can say whatever you want and you’re free to criticize the government in wholesome western liberal democracies. /s

    British police detain journalist Kit Klarenberg, interrogate him about The Grayzone

    https://thegrayzone.com/2023/05/30/journalist-kit-klarenberg-british-police-interrogated-grayzone/

    As soon as journalist Kit Klarenberg landed in his home country of Britain on May 17, 2023, six anonymous plainclothes counter-terror officers detained him. They quickly escorted him to a back room, where they grilled him for over five hours about his reporting for this outlet. They also inquired about his personal opinion on everything from the current British political leadership to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    At one point, Klarenberg’s interrogators demanded to know whether The Grayzone had a special arrangement with Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) to publish hacked material.

    During Klarenberg’s detention, police seized the journalist’s electronic devices and SD cards, fingerprinted him, took DNA swabs, and photographed him intensively. They threatened to arrest him if he did not comply.

      • @Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
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        1210 months ago

        It always weirded me out in foreign airports. Police with guns, just casually standing in the open. India, Cyprus, Europe. Pretty sure we don’t have those in le ebil totalitarian Russia

      • @knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
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        1010 months ago

        I am still shocked at how many cops there are out and about in Germany with fully automatic weapons in their hands ready to go. You’d expect it from Amerikkkans but not at a German train station or Christmas Market. Another one that has stuck with me was an entire group of soldiers with assault rifles and armored vehicles hanging out at the bus depot in Venice Italy.

        • @Navaryn@lemmygrad.ml
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          510 months ago

          the terror attacks in the last decades (such as the one in nice, or the bataclan, or many others) have been our 9/11 in that regard. The fearmongering that came after those was meant to justify heavily armed police (and in some cases even soldiers, i saw them in Milan) in public spaces just like the fearmongering after 9/11 was meant to justify the patriot act.

          From in the last 10 years police and military presence has increased MASSIVELY across europe, and nobody noticed because at the time the media made it seem reasonable. And now the emergency is no more, but we sure as hell ain’t going back to how it was before just like the US never dropped the patriot act.

  • Chay
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    910 months ago

    China facing ‘more complex’ security challenges, President Xi Jinping says, warns of ‘worst-case’ situation

    China is facing more complex and difficult national security concerns, President Xi Jinping warned on Tuesday, in comments analysts said showed the country harboured no “illusions” about the possible damaging effects of its rivalry with the US and had little hope of a lasting improvement in ties.

    He said the country’s security apparatus needed to stay “keenly aware” of the complicated and challenging circumstances facing national security, and correctly grasp major related issues, according to state news agency Xinhua.

    The national security issues facing China were “considerably more complex and much more difficult” to deal with, Xinhua reported Xi as saying, as he urged officials to be ready to deal with “worst-case and most extreme scenarios”, so that they could withstand “high winds and waves and even perilous storms”.

    “The ‘worst-case scenarios’ might include a nuclear war, a devastating war that ruins China’s coastal economic belts [or] Western sanctions on China’s energy, finance and food supply,” Xie said.

    “Xi has named the US as the culprit behind China’s problems,” Wu said.

  • Neptium
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    710 months ago

    Taliban deploys heavy reinforcements to Iran border

    Videos circulating social media on 31 May show Taliban forces heavily reinforcing the Afghan border with Iran on 31 May, after significant escalation regarding a water dispute between the two countries, which resulted in heavy border clashes between the two sides over the weekend.

    The outbreak of fighting came a week after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned the Taliban to respect Iran’s rights to water from the Helmand River shared between the two countries, under the 1973 Afghan-Iranian Helmand River Treaty. Iran has long accused Afghanistan of restricting the flow of its water to Iran and causing droughts or dry spells.

    Despite videos showing reinforcements on the border, Iranian media reports suggested that some “elements are trying to provoke the parties involved with rumors and fake news.”

    • @Navaryn@lemmygrad.ml
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      310 months ago

      What even is the point? Do the taliban actually think they can go in the offensive against Iran? I really don’t get what’s the plan here

      • @redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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        510 months ago

        I’m skeptical(?) about the whole thing. I saw the story break, but as nobody had mentioned it on Lemmygrad, I did some digging.

        At the time, the only sources were the AP, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Liberty and a couple of others. So I dismissed the narrative as propaganda. If there is a conflict over the water, it’s not going to be resolved by a skirmish ffs.

        I’m not saying the skirmish didn’t happen – it probably did. Two people were killed, apparently, one from either side.

        Curious how this is happening after the US ‘withdrawal’ from Afghanistan. I wonder what military hardware ‘had to be’ abandoned in that withdrawal. Call me a conspiracy theorist but doesn’t the US have a history of clandestine support for the Taliban/brave Mujahedeen warriors? I’ll wait for the evidence before I’m confident, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the CIA is behind this in one way or another. They’re pissed off that Iran and Saudi Arabia are turning eastwards, together.

  • Chay
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    710 months ago

    Protests in Germany after woman convicted of attacking neo-Nazis

    German police clashed with protesters in at least one city on Wednesday after a woman was convicted of taking part in several attacks on neo-Nazis and members of right-wing extremist groups.

    According to police in Leipzig, around 800 people gathered in the city following the verdict, with ABC News reporting that an unknown number had attempted to break through police barricades. Some also threw projectiles at officers, including stones and fireworks. There were also demonstrations in Hamburg, Berlin and Bremen.

    The 28-year-old woman, identified only as ‘Lina E.’ due to Germany’s strict privacy laws, was sentenced to five years and three months in prison after being convicted by a court in Dresden of membership of a criminal organization and of causing serious bodily harm. Three co-accused men were also handed custodial sentences.

    Prosecutors had accused Lina E. of possessing a “militant extreme-left ideology” and of participating in a string of attacks on prominent members of Germany’s neo-Nazi scene. The charges against the defendant accused her of six violent attacks between August 2018 and the summer of 2020, which resulted in injuries to 13 people. Two of those attacked received life-threatening injuries.

    In closing comments, the judge who presided over the case said right-wing extremism posed a far greater threat to Germany than any left-wing groups with which Lina E. was associated. He added, though, that Nazis had the same rights as any other citizen in the country, even if their ideologies are abhorrent.

      • Chay
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        810 months ago

        Considering West Germany’s past of protecting Nazis in court and how it was ruled by literal Nazis, doesn’t surprise me.

  • Chay
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    610 months ago

    China urges U.S. to stop provocative moves in South China Sea

    China said on Wednesday that a U.S. RC-135 surveillance aircraft deliberately broke into a Chinese military training area in the South China Sea on May 26 to carry out reconnaissance and interference.

    China had sent aircraft to track and monitor the U.S. jet in accordance with laws and regulations, said Zhang Nandong, spokesperson for the Southern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, on Wednesday.

    The response came after the U.S. recently accused China of conducting an “unnecessarily aggressive” maneuver near a U.S. military plane over the South China Sea in international airspace, which the Chinese spokesperson said was a total disregard of facts and an attempt to mislead the international public.

    “We sternly urge the U.S. side to effectively restrain the actions of its frontline forces at sea and in the air, strictly comply with relevant international law and agreements to prevent air and sea accidents; otherwise, all consequences arising therefrom will be borne by the U.S. side,” the spokesperson warned.

    The Chinese army is always on high alert and will resolutely defend China’s national sovereignty and security, as well as peace and stability in the South China Sea, the spokesperson added.

    “The U.S. needs to immediately stop such dangerous acts of provocation. We will continue to take necessary measures to firmly safeguard our sovereignty and security,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a daily press briefing.

  • Chay
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    610 months ago

    Weapon US gave Ukraine spotted in cartel hands – Mexican media

    A militant wearing the insignia of Mexico’s notorious Gulf Cartel (Cartel Del Golfo, CDG) was filmed in the state of Tamaulipas carrying a US-made anti-tank missile launcher. Milenio TV identified the weapon as a Javelin, thousands of which were sent to Ukraine by the Pentagon.

    Footage filmed in Matamoros on Monday and aired on Tuesday evening by the news channel Milenio TV showed a man with CDG patches armed with a Kalashnikov rifle and a missile they said was the Raytheon-made FGM-148.

    Over 10,000 Javelins from Pentagon stockpiles have been sent to Ukraine since last February, to the point where the US military has begun to run out of the missiles itself.

    • @redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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      710 months ago

      I won’t be surprised, in a decade or so, to read the news story of a dead journalist who was writing about the shipping routes of US ‘aid’ to Ukraine.

  • Chay
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    610 months ago

    Time to ditch the dollar – Cuban president

    With US dominance broken, the BRICS nations can build a fairer world, Miguel Diaz-Canel told RT

    Giving up the US dollar will free developing countries from Washington’s “sanctions, blackmail, aggression, and slander,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told RT in an exclusive interview due to air on Thursday.

    The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency enables the US to pursue an “aggressive hegemonistic policy of building walls, imposing punitive sanctions, blackmail, aggression and slander,” Diaz-Canel said. Against this policy – which has seen Cuba embargoed for six decades by the US – Diaz-Canel added that “BRICS provides a brilliant alternative for economic integration, especially for developing economies.”

    “I believe that we need to recognize the leading role of Russia in shaping this multipolar world,” Diaz-Canel said, stating that continued “de-dollarization” will lead to “more inclusive and more mutually beneficial trade” for those who reject the US’ “lies and empty promises.”

    “It is at times like this that we get friends from other countries supporting us with real actions and under conditions that are not harmful to our independence,” Diaz-Canel told RT.

  • Chay
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    610 months ago

    From Simp to Soldier: How the Military is Using E-Girls To Recruit Gen Z Into Service

    Amid a crisis in recruitment, the U.S. military has found a new way of convincing a war-weary Generation Z to enlist: thirst traps.

    Chief among these attractive young women in uniform posting sexually suggestive content alongside subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) calls to join up is Hailey Lujan. In between the thirst traps and memes, the 21-year-old makes content extolling the fun of Army life to her 731,000 TikTok followers. “Don’t go to college, become a farmer or a soldier instead,” she instructs viewers in a recent video. “Just some advice for the younger people: if you’re not doing school, it’s ok. I dropped out of college. And I’m doing great,” she adds.

    If Lujan feels like a psyop (a psychological operation) it is because, technically, she is. Lujan is a psychological operations specialist; one of a small number of Army personnel whose job is to carry out influence and disinfo operations, either on or offline. Thus, she is using her femininity to recruit legions of lustful teens into an institution with an infamous record of sexism and sexual assault against female soldiers.

    Nevertheless, Edward Bernays, the father of modern propaganda, might conclude that it matters little if Lujan is or is not an Army psyop; the consequence is still to get impressionable young men to associate lust with the military, connecting sexual desire with the armed forces – in effect, making them horny for war.

    Nevertheless, it is clear that the powers that be appreciate their content subtly promoting military life. The official Air Force media guide states that “You are encouraged to use social media to share your experiences as an Airman” as “Your stories might inspire someone to join the Air Force, support the Air Force, comfort a parent or spouse, improve morale or correct inaccurate information.” Those experiences, however, better be positive ones, as it also warns that sharing the wrong kind of information (i.e. content showing the military in a bad light) “could jeopardize you and your Airman’s career”.

    TikTok is not the only battleground for young people’s minds, however. In the last year, a significant portion of the Biden administration’s record-breaking $857 billion defense budget went on advertising. The Army in particular has spent large sums of money collaborating with some of YouTube’s biggest stars to produce barely disguised recruitment videos.

  • @KommandoGZD@lemmygrad.ml
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    510 months ago

    Russia’s own economic figures show a steep drop in industrial output amid a record labor shortage

    the economy ministry said industrial output dropped 5% in April from the prior month

    The drop coincides with a historic labor shortage that’s weighing on factories. According to a central bank survey last month

    Russia’s unemployment rate dropped to a record low of 3.3%.

    Meanwhile, retail sales in April dipped 0.1% from the prior month, signaling weakness in consumer demand. Monthly GDP growth also slowed to 0.2% in April after accounting for seasonal adjustments.

    First-quarter corporate profits fell 22.3% year over year, while capital investments dropped to 0.7% from last year’s 13.8%.

    • @KommandoGZD@lemmygrad.ml
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      710 months ago

      Just sharing, because this made big headlines on Reddit, when it’s obviously mostly cope.

      A 0.1% dip in retail sales? Wow.

      Record unemployment, still some GDP growth, labour shortages and falling corporate profits. This is still a whole lot better than even Europe’s primary economic engine, Germany, while withstanding a billion sanctions.

      It’s also iirc the exact inverse of eg Germany’s data. There GDP is shrinking, corporate profits, industrial output rising quite sharply and retail sales going down. Labour shortages are present too.

      • @Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
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        110 months ago

        I mean, there are issues with industry labor shortages. Although they seem to stem largely from the capitalist mode of production

  • Chay
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    510 months ago

    Boluarte Authorizes the Entry of US Military Into Peru

    The US military presence occurs amid protests against President Dina Boluarte called by worker and farmer organizations.

    On Wednesday, President Dina Boluarte authorized the entry into Peruvian territory of over a thousand U.S. soldiers, who will train the Armed Forces and the National Police.

    The U.S. military will carry out operations with the Peruvian Joint Intelligence and Special Operations Command (CIOEC), the Joint Special Forces (FEC), the Navy’s Special Operations Forces (FOE), the Air Force’s Special Forces Group (GRUFE), the Anti-drug Directorate (DIRANDRO), and the Police’s Special Forces Directorate (DIROES).

    The training will take place in Lima, Callao, Loreto, San Martin, Santa Lucia, Huanuco, Ucayali, Pasco, Junin, Huancavelica, Cusco, Ayacucho, Iquitos, Pucusana and Apurimac.

    The U.S. military will arrive in various groups, between June 1 and December 31. The largest group will be made up of 970 members of the U.S. Air Force, Space Force, and Special Forces.

    Besides carrying their personal regulation weapons, they will arrive in Peru with planes, trucks and rapid response boats to take part in the “Resolute Sentinel 2023” maneuver.

    On May 19, the Peruvian Congress approved the entry of the U.S. military with the favorable vote of right-wing legislators. During the debate, leftist lawmakers opposed the authorization, noting that the U.S. troops put sovereignty at risk and will not guarantee the country’s security.

    • @Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
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      610 months ago

      I’m sure the freedom loving liberals will oppose this obvious violation of national sovereignty and enforcement of dictatorship by the means of foreign military intervention!

      Right? Right?!