news

Autoworkers in the United States expanded its two-week strike against Detroit automakers on Friday. The representatives of the workers' union said that at least seven thousand workers from plants such as ford in Chicago and General Motors in Michigan, joined the eighteen thousand six hundred who were already on strike.

‘Get moving or you’ll miss the boat,’ Australian resources minister tells EU

Talking to journalists in Brussels on Tuesday (26 September), the Australian Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Madeleine King argued for more European investments into the Australian critical minerals sector, criticising the EU’s insistence on banning dual pricing in the free trade negotiations between the EU and Australia.

With China in a dominant position and Japan and the US increasing their investments in the Australian raw materials sector, European companies were behind the curve, King said. “I’ve met with them, and they are changing their mindset, but I think they just need to change it a bit quicker,” she said, arguing that American competitors were much faster in increasing their investments.

“I’m just here to tell you, you know, get moving, or you will miss the boat,” she told the Brussels journalists.

Australia has large deposits of lithium, nickel and other minerals crucial for the green transition. “We’re the largest producer of lithium,” King said, adding that 96% of the lithium spodumene produced in Australia was going to China for refining.

Asked whether it was even possible to de-risk to an extent that China would not have a strategic dominance in these sectors, the Australian minister said: “Probably not. They are two decades ahead of the rest of the world, they’ve invested in this capacity.”

“And in some respects, I think the Western world has outsourced its mining and mineral processing to China because they’ve chosen not to do it,” King said.

lmao

The Country of the Week is Greece!

As mentioned in the preamble, feel free to post or recommend any material related to Greece, whether from a thousand years ago or yesterday. You can post it anywhere in the thread, but you can also reply to this comment if you wish.

If you're feeling particularly ambitious and want homework, you could take on any or all of these questions (no reward, but I'll be very proud of you):

• Who are the main political actors? Are they compradors, nationalists, international socialists, something else?
• What are the most salient domestic political issues; those issues that repeatedly shape elections over the last 10, 20 years. Every country has its quirks that complicate analysis - for example, Brexit in the UK.
• What is the country's history? You don't have to go back a thousand years if that's not relevant, and I'm counting "history" as basically anything that has happened over a year ago.
• What factions exist, historically and currently? If there is an electoral system, what are the major parties and their demographic bases? Are there any minor parties with large amounts of influence? Independence movements? Religious groups?
• How socially progressive or conservative are they? Is there equality for different ethnic groups, or are some persecuted? Do they have LGBTQIA+ rights? Have they improved over time, or gotten worse?
• What role do foreign powers play in the country’s politics and economy? Is there a particular country nearby or far away that is nearly inseparable from them, for good or bad reasons? Is their trade dominated by exports/imports to one place? Are they exploited, exploiters, or something in between?
• If applicable, what is the influence of former colonial relationships on the modern economy and politics?
• Is the country generally stable? Do you think there will be a coup at some point in the future, and if so, what faction might replace them?

Last week's country was Singapore.

Discussions included:

• Lots of discussion on Singapore in this comment thread after I tried (and mostly failed) to find good literature on the country.
• An interesting, long article on Singapore (with some brainworms) by Le Monde, posted by @thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net

This is our Geopolitics Reading List so far! Please chime in with suggestions!

General Theory:

• Super Imperialism, by Michael Hudson.
• Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis, by John Smith.
• Superexploitation and the Imperialist Drive of Capitalism: How Marini's 'Dialectics of Dependency' Goes beyond Marx's 'Capital', by Andy Higginbottom.
• Capital Volume 3 Lecture Series, 32 videos, 10-15 minutes each, by Andy Higginbottom.
• World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction, by Immanuel Wallerstein.
• Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, by Radhika Desai.
• Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy, by Radhika Desai.

Canada:

• Canada in the World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination, by Tyler Shipley.

Chile:

• 1000 Days of Revolution: Chilean Communists on the Lessons of Popular Unity (I cannot personally find an online version).
• Santiago Boys Podcast, analyzing Allende's government and Cybersyn.

United States:

• Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture, by Oswaldo Zavala.

Venezuela:

• Objective Conditions in Venezuela: Maduro’s Defensive Strategy and Contradictions Among the People, a longform article by Steve Ellner.

https://abc7news.com/senator-dianne-feinstein-dead-obituary-san-francisco-mayor-cable-car/13635510/

Plans for doubling Azerbaijan's gas flows to Europe on hold

Plans agreed last year by Azerbaijan and the European Union for Baku to double the volume of gas it sends to Europe to 20 billion cubic metres a year are on hold as European gas buyers have yet to confirm they'll take the gas.

...

But he added that, as far as he was aware, as yet neither the operators of Azerbaijan's main gas fields nor the operators of the three pipelines which carry the gas from Azerbaijan to European markets had received confirmation that the gas actually has a market in Europe.

"On the European side, I don't think they are giving a full-fledged long-term commitment for the off-taking of this additional gas. Without this commitment, I don't think the expansion is possible,"

real fucking comedy of errors going on in Europe these past two years

posted cringe comrades

so how is this going to work? Newsom appoints Pelosi's choice Schiff to replace Feinstein and the DNC tries to clear the field for a Newsom presidential run in 2028? or some smaller concession, but he definitely wants to run. not that it matters but what's your speculation

An interesting article on China's chipbuilding efforts, including a proposal for a giant chip factory with a particle accelerator 100-150 meters in circumference, and a discussion of the physics behind it (which I get the gist of, I think).

ASML is the only company that owns the technology and therefore dominates the market. As of the end of 2022, ASML had delivered 180 EUV systems. It also plans to ship 60 EUVs this year, according to a Bloomberg report published in April.

While there are many researchers chasing the technology, the Chinese scientists have been exploring a different path. It is a project that has been running since 2017, but due to Huawei’s breakthroughs in chip manufacturing, it was recently catapulted into public view.

“One of the potential applications of our research is as a light source for future EUV lithography machines. I think this is why the international community is paying close attention,” said project leader Professor Tang Chuanxiang from Tsinghua University in a report on the university’s website.

The theory behind the team’s research is a new luminescence mechanism called steady-state microbunching (SSMB). It was first proposed by Professor Zhao Wu at Stanford University and his student Daniel Ratner in 2010. Zhao is a former student of the famous physicist Yang Zhenning.

In short, SSMB theory uses the energy released by charged particles during acceleration to act as a light source. The result is a narrow bandwidth, small scattering angle and continuous pure EUV light. Charged particles emit light when they are accelerated, and accelerators that use this phenomenon are among the brightest artificial sources of light available.

“The main challenge lies in guiding the distribution of electrons within the storage ring of the accelerator, causing them to achieve collective synchronous radiation. The device could produce high-quality radiations from terahertz waves at a wavelength of 0.3mm to EUV waves at wavelengths of 13.5nm,” Zhao said in an academic report at Tsinghua in October 2022.

“Unlike free-electron lasers, which produce pulsed lasers with high peak power, SSMB sources produce continuous light with high average power,” he said. This characteristic has led to the broad application prospects of SSMB.

Compared with current ASML EUV technology, SSMB is a more ideal light source. It has a higher average power and higher chip production output with lower unit cost.

ASML creates an EUV source from laser-produced plasma, where strong laser pulses are projected to liquid microdroplets of tin. The laser crushes the droplets and produces EUV pulse light during the impact. After complex filtering and focusing, an EUV light source with a power of about 250W is produced.

Before reaching the chip, the EUV beam undergoes reflection from 11 mirrors, each causing about a 30 per cent energy loss. As a result, the power of the beam is less than 5W when reaching the wafer. This can become an issue when manufacturing turns to 3nm or 2nm. SSMB technology avoids such concerns. SSMB beams achieve a higher output power of 1000W, and due to its narrow bandwidth, fewer reflecting mirrors are needed, which naturally generates higher terminal power.

Today we had out first Presidential Debate in Argentina and primaries winner Javier Milei did an outright and public genocide denial as he claimed "There were no 30,000 disappeared, only 8,000" (He actually gave a very specific number around 8k) and that we have been in a state of "War" in the 70s and the military dictatorship did commit some "excesses".

Death to all Fascists like him.

Chile’s Communists elect a new leader—Barbara Figueroa

In an interview with Prensa Latina, Figueroa said she was very proud to become the new party leader, adding that the role brings with it a lot of responsibilities because of the challenges currently facing Chile. “It means a lot to be part of a process of collective debate” on these challenges, she said.

The party is considering the current political situation in Chile and how best to strengthen its leadership to tackle the situation. Chilean voters will be deciding on a new constitution for the country in a referendum on Dec. 17.

...

In March 2022, Boric appointed her to become Chile’s ambassador to Argentina. At the time, he noted that it was “invaluable to have a union leader as our representative, the first woman in the history of our country to represent Chile in Argentina.”

Her appointment marked the first time since the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende that the Communist Party had been asked to take on such an important diplomatic mission. At that time, famed artist and party member Pablo Neruda was sent to the embassy in Paris, France.

Spain unable to form a new ruling coalition: regional separatist parties are kingmakers

Spanish Popular Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo fell short of the 176 votes he needed to become prime minister after a vote by lawmakers on Wednesday. Feijioo's conservative Popular Party won the most seats in the July 2023 general election, but he has struggled with putting together a coalition to form a government as he opposes giving concessions to separatist parties.

Feijoo failed to convince enough lawmakers to back him to win an absolute majority after several hours of debate that began Tuesday, before the first round of voting on Wednesday. “Nobody knows what is going to happen in this country if my bid to become prime minister fails,” Feijoo told lawmakers. ”Therefore it seems reasonable, given that we are in a democracy, that the (current) government not hide its deals. But they don’t even want to talk about them. Transparency and this government are incompatible,“ Feijoo added.

Feijoo had 172 votes in his favor to 178 against in the 350-seat parliament. Feijoo will get a second vote on Friday, though TV station.

If he fails to win votes on Friday, acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez would get a shot at staying in office. To do so, he would need the support of the country's regionalist political parties to add to the 121 seats the PSOE won.

Chief among the regional parties is the party led by exiled former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, as the party holds seven seats. Puigdemont, who is wanted in Spain for attempting the region's secession in 2017, has demanded that legal action be dropped against fellow separatists as a condition for his support. The debate before the vote was also dominated by the possibility that Sanchez was considering accepting the demand of Catalan separatist parties.

If no government is formed before November 27, the parliament will be dissolved. A new election would be called in January.

is dipshit ableist

The climate crisis hits Brazil with extreme events. The Brazilian Amazon faces a drought, while in the southern region of the country, floods are reported.

Central Greece Battered by Storm Elias

On Wednesday, central Greece faced severe weather conditions as it was struck by a storm known as "Elias," which has led to extensive flooding in parts of the region.

Some affected areas had already endured the consequences of the recent storm "Daniel" just three weeks ago, which resulted in 17 casualties and significant damage to infrastructure, residential areas, and agriculture.

Residents in the port city of Volos were requested to stay indoors on Wednesday afternoon due to floods from heavy rainfall, Greek national news agency AMNA reported. Meanwhile, residents of three villages near the cities of Larissa, Karditsa and Lamia were alerted by authorities to prepare for possible evacuations given rising river waters.