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Image is of Brazilian chuds storming the National Congress building in opposition to Lula winning the election, on January 8th, 2023, in their remarkably even shittier version of the January 6th events in America.

Bolsonaro, who is in the tragic category of pro-US South American leaders who are so awful and uncharismatic that even they can't get the US to help them overthrow a democratically elected left-ish government, has recently been facing that most elusive of things in this current world order: consequences for his actions. Bolsonaro and his friends have been under investigation by the police, and his passport has now been seized, meaning he is unable to leave the country. Alongside the man himself, the leader of the Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, has been caught up in searches and investigations. Brazilian Army Colonel Bernardo Correa Neto, a former aide to Bolsonaro, was very recently arrested upon his return to Brazil from the US, as well as another colonel.

From the Hexbear South American correspondent (a position I just made up), @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net:

Lol, they are really fucked. Iirc, this is a municipal election year in Brazil, Bolsonaro can't campaign publicly, he can't promote his candidates. The leader of his party is currently in prison. And even if he is released from prison, they are forbidden to communicate with each other. The high-ranking members of the Liberal Party are pretty much fucked because they can't communicate with each other and getting support from Bolsonaro could be very bad, as left-wing candidates will exploit the fact that Bolsonaro will probably be imprisoned for planning a coup.

The FBI seems to have concluded its investigation into Bolsonaro's money laundering scheme in the US and handed over its findings to the Brazilian Federal Police, I don't think Bolsonaro can even go to the US anymore, or any other country. And it could get even funnier, there is a very small chance of the Liberal Party being banned and all its seats in congress and the senate being transferred to other politicians, many of whom, even if they are conservative, will be much more favorable to Lula's social and economic reforms, as it has been proven that Bolsonaro used the party to finance the coup.

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Wasn't this the guy that refused to open up for flood victims?

A Texas man who drugged his wife's drinks in an attempt to induce an abortion was sentenced to 180 days in jail and 10 years on probation.

Mason Herring, a 39-year-old Houston attorney, pleaded guilty Wednesday to injury to a child and assault of a pregnant person. He had initially been charged with felony assault to induce abortion.

Catherine Herring, who has filed for divorce, told the court the jail sentence was not long enough. She said their 1-year-old daughter, their third child, was born about 10 weeks premature, has developmental delays and attends therapy eight times a week.

“I do not believe that 180 days is justice for attempting to kill your child seven separate times,” Catherine Herring said.

Catherine Herring told authorities her husband in March 2022 began lecturing her on hydration and offering water. She said she became severely ill after drinking from the first cup that appeared cloudy, which her husband explained was perhaps the result of the cup or water pipes being dirty.

Catherine Herring became suspicious and began refusing multiple other drinks her husband offered. She later found in the trash packaging for a drug that contained misoprostol, a medicine used to induce abortion.

She also gave police videos from hidden cameras she installed at her home where her husband was no longer living. One of them showed him mixing a substance in one of her drinks, Catherine Herring said.

Mason Herring's attorney, Dan Cogdell, called the plea deal and sentence reasonable.

“It’s a sad situation and Mason has accepted his responsibility,” Cogdell said.

Texas law logic:

: A Doctor Helped a Woman have a safe, consentual abortion? Jail for Life!

: A guy secretly poisoned his wife multiple times, causing birth defects on his child? Well, what can you do, a slap in the wrist is enough.

The family of doctor Muhammad Abu Salmiya said that he is being severely tortured because he refused to appear in a video accusing the resistance of using Al Shifa Hospital as a military site.

AnalysisThe joint air strikes against the Yemen-based rebels amount to an 'instinctive reaction' which risks prompting Houthi attacks elsewhere

America and Britain are engaged in “comfort bombing” in their joint campaign to strike Houthis in Yemen and by doing so they risk an expansion of the conflict with the Iran-backed group, a senior expert has warned.

Washington has embarked on what some analysts have described as a “Goldilocks” operation to hit back against Iranian-supported armed factions in various parts of the Middle East on the basis that the action needs to be “just right” in confronting Tehran and its regional militias without prompting a wider conflagration.

But Dr Afzal Ashraf, a visiting fellow in international relations at Loughborough University, who previously served for 30 years in the UK armed forces, said London and Washington’s joint air strikes against the Houthis, which resumed on Saturday night, were an “instinctive reaction” whose long-term effectiveness in deterring and degrading the Yemen-based group was uncertain.

The rebels, who control a large expanse of eastern and central Yemen including the capital Sana’a, have retained their position, despite a years-long bombing campaign by a Saudi-led coalition to dislodge them.

Dr Ashraf said: “In the long term, it’s hard to say if the Houthis will be deterred, but in the short term it won’t deter them at all. I would describe this as ‘comfort bombing’; it is something the US and Britain do when they feel the need to exert themselves.

“There are very few cases when its targets have been deterred. The Houthis are a people who have been bombed for several years by American-made weapons, so they certainly aren’t going to be frightened in the next few weeks.”

The US-led strikes against the Houthis, aimed at ending missile and drone attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, are being treated by Washington and London as separate from American reprisal attacks on Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria which began on Friday after the deaths of three US personnel at a base in Jordan.

However, the overlapping nature of the campaigns was underlined on Sunday when Tehran issued a direct warning to the US not to strike at two cargo ships widely regarded by Western intelligence to serve as floating bases for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

One of the vessels, the Behshad, which operates in the southern reaches of the Red Sea, is believed to be playing a role in the Houthi attacks by monitoring commercial shipping and possibly passing targeting information back to command posts in Yemen.

In a video statement, Iran’s regular armed forces reiterated Tehran’s longheld explanation that the Behshad and a sister ship are engaged in anti-piracy operations and warned that any “terrorist activities” against the vessel would jeopardise maritime security and result in “potential future international risk”.

Washington has suggested that the strikes against Houthis so far have reduced the rebel group’s offensive capabilities by about 30 per cent – suggesting much of its equipment to fire missiles and drones against shipping remains intact.

Dr Ashraf, who served in Iraq as a counter-insurgency specialist, said the American-led action against the Houthis is likely to eventually be effective in reducing the threat to commercial vessels.

But he warned an unintended side effect could see the Houthis instead using their arsenal, which includes drones capable of flying significant distances, to target American troops and bases elsewhere in the Middle East.

He said: “[The air strikes] may reduce Houthi capabilities and positively affect shipping. The Houthis have said there will be retaliation, so what they might do is change the nature of the conflict. They may send drones over to where they know US soldiers live and work, as we saw in Jordan.

“It’s hard to tell how this will develop – all the indications are that the Houthis won’t let it go and they won’t sit down quietly.”

So there is a report going around (originally by Der Spiegel and ZDF), based on "research" by Adrian Zenz, about German companies' involvement in Uyghur oppression. I couldn't find the document that Zenz is basing this on.

In this article, though not directly related to the allegations against BASF and VW, they put a face to Uyghur oppression: Gulpiya Qazybek, a Kazakh woman from Xinjiang (left for Almaty in 2019), confesses her involvement in spying on people and even helping detain them. She says her own mother was also imprisoned.

I read through a bunch of articles based on interviews with her, the first one I could find is from 2021 (see sources at the end).

I found some discrepancies:

• None of the pre-2024 articles mention her being complicit. The older articles are just about her mother being in prison.

• According to Der Spiegel, her mother was 65 in 2017, but according to Eurasianet, she was 78 in 2022.

• According to Der Spiegel (Feb 2024), the mother was released and put under house arrest in autumn of 2023. The Telegraph article (Jan 2024) does not mention this, but says "Gulpyia campaigns relentlessly for the Chinese government to free her elderly mother", implying she is still imprisoned.

• According to Der Spiegel, two of them were responsible for monitoring 12 families. The Telegraph article, however, says "she was ordered to monitor 60 families".

• According to Der Spiegel, the mother was sentenced to 15 years. All the other articles say 12.

• In 2021 New East Archive article, the timeline is: The mother gets detained more than 5 years ago, turns up in the hospital several months later. They get told that she was sentenced by a court 8 months after that. In the 2024 Telegraph story, the mother gets detained by the end of 2017, then, 8 months later, she is in the hospital, and then, the following year, they are told of her sentencing. So this "8 months" figure is after the hospital in story one, but before the hospital in story two. And the detention in story one cannot possibly take place by the end of 2017 (as in story two), because it is supposedly more than 5 years before Dec 2021, i.e. 2016 or earlier.

• In the 2021 New East Archive article, she says she "know[s] of people who sleep in their clothes in case they are detained in the night." In the 2022 Meduza story, the people sleeping in their clothes are her relatives. In the 2024 Der Spiegel article, the people doing this are farmers, but she ("we") eventually did that also. This anecdote goes from basically hearsay to something that happened to her personally.

• In the New East Archive story, her mother tells her she is in the hospital because she was kicked in the chest during interrogation, and there is no mention of any other health condition. In the Telegraph article, her mother "had been diagnosed with a brain tumour, and her health was failing". Though the mother does does also tell her "they beat me."

Sources

• New East Archive (London-based NGO) | archive (dated Dec 06, 2021)
• Meduza (Latvian-based Russian opposition media) | archive (dated Jun 07, 2022; but the original Russian version is from Mar 31, 2022)
• Eurasianet (US NGO, chair former RFE/RL, funded by NED etc.) | archive (dated Sep 29, 2022)
• The Daily Telegraph (UK arch-conservative establishment media) | archive (dated Jan 06, 2024)
• Der Spiegel (German establishment media) | archive (dated Feb 02, 2024)

Looks like one of the transphobic shit stains in Utah went too far and pissed off ordinary Mormon soccer moms. I hope this is a wake up call for some of these people, but probably not.

Moroccan hashish suppliers are refusing to sell to Israeli dealers in protest against the war in Gaza, according to a report in Israeli media on Friday.

The Israeli news site Mako cited several Israeli drug dealers complaining about the drop-off in trade.

"The hashish dealers in Morocco are not willing to sell us more hashish either directly or through intermediaries," said one dealer.

"They decided that because of the war they are boycotting us. Since the war, we have lost a lot of money. Tens of millions of shekels at least."

The outlet also quoted a Moroccan hashish dealer saying they were refusing to sell to Israelis over the war.

lol, lmao even

In Communist North Soviet China etc.

"Old friend" is a common phrase China’s communist party uses as a tribute to foreigners considered helpful to their interests. It’s also an expression of nostalgia for longtime companions or acquaintances.

Is this real or did they just made it up to make China sound more mysterious and different lol

Once again, the Israeli fascist military is attempting to cleanse one of Gaza's free cities of its Arab population and replace them with settlers under the pretext of fighting Hamas "terrorists."

https://news.yahoo.com/joe-biden-uniquely-indifferent-palestinian-163000270.html

https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/arab-public-opinion-about-israels-war-on-gaza/

Oh yeah and the comments on MEMO - pretty much every commenter deserves their house to be Fajr-5'd

Ukraine's president has sacked the commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

It follows speculation about a rift between the president and Gen Zaluzhnyi, who has led Ukraine's war effort since the conflict began.

General Oleksandr Syrskyi was announced as his replacement in a presidential decree.

The move marks the biggest change to Ukraine's military leadership since Russia's invasion in February 2022.

Mr Zelensky said the high command needed to be "renewed" and that Gen Zaluzhnyi could "remain on the team".

"Starting today, a new management team will take over the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," he said on Thursday.

The president said he and Gen Zaluzhnyi had a "frank conversation" about the changes needed in the army, and that he thanked the general for defending Ukraine from Russia.

Mr Zelensky said the new army chief, Gen Syrskyi, has experience of both defensive and offensive warfare.

The general led the defence of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.

He was the mastermind behind Ukraine's surprise and successful counter-attack in Kharkiv that summer and has since been serving as the head of military operations in eastern Ukraine - one of the two main axes in Ukraine's counter-offensive.

"We must make this year a crucial one," Mr Zelensky said.

"Crucial for achieving Ukraine's goals in the war. Russia cannot simply accept the existence of an independent Ukraine - the very fact of our country's independent life."

He said his "renewal" of the army's leadership was "not about surnames" or politics, but rather the management of Ukraine's armed forces and the experience of battlefield commanders.

"The army's actions must become much more technologically advanced. The generalship must be reset," he added.

Mr Zelensky said he expected a detailed plan for the armed forces this year, taking into account the reality of the war with Russia. He said there needed to be a different approach to frontline management, mobilisation and recruitment.

Ukrainian MP Mykhailo Podolyak, who is the adviser to the head of the president's office, said the move was needed to revise the tactics used in Ukraine's counter-offensive last year.

He echoed Mr Zelensky's comments about the need to prevent stagnation on the frontline and to find high-tech solutions.

But there has been mixed reaction so far to the announcement, with opposition MPs the first to criticise the shake-up.

Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko thanked Gen Zaluzhnyi for his service to Ukraine, adding that he hoped the authorities would justify the changes.

Oleksii Honcharenko, from the Ukrainian opposition party Poroshenko, said the move was "a huge mistake" by the president. He said it would carry risks for the country, adding: "We will all have to pay for this mistake."

Another opposition MP, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko from the Batkivschina party, said that the military leadership during the war "is something that we must preserve, support, not criticise, but help in every possible way".

Ukraine's defence minister, Rustem Umerov, thanked Gen Zaluzhnyi in a statement, saying:

"General Valerii Zaluzhnyi had one of the most difficult tasks - to lead the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the Great War with Russia.

"But war does not remain the same. War changes and demands change. Battles 2022, 2023 and 2024 are three different realities. 2024 will bring new changes, for which we must be ready. New approaches, new strategies are needed.

"Today, a decision was made on the need to change the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

"I am sincerely grateful to Valerii Fedorovych for all his achievements and victories."

Gen Zaluznyi was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces in July 2021.

He led the Ukrainian army's resistance against Russian troops for almost two years.

He had repeatedly pushed for more Ukrainians to be mobilised, saying in December that he would have welcomed the introduction of "any method" to the army's demand for manpower.

Speculation had been rising in recent weeks that Gen Zaluzhnyi's dismissal was imminent. At the end of January, the Financial Times reported that the president had offered the general a new role, but he had refused.