Interviewing 
and he's just like "Well, I don't know much about Sudan, but I'm really liking all the bloodshed and chaos over there. Great at feeding the energy required for my phylactery. Oh, you wanna resolve it, not keep it going? I suppose my aides could move my soul urn to Palestine or Yemen instead, sure."
given Germany's habit of promising they won't do something and then doing it anyway under US pressure six months later, I merely interpret this is an admission that this is in the cards
If Yemen sinks an aircraft carrier then I, a uselessly monolingual Brit who did terribly in language classes, will do everything I can to learn Arabic
Yes, although I have since been informed by Xi that he has a new plan and he's going to Arizona next
Allegedly, the Golani Brigade has left Gaza to reorganize their ranks
41 soldiers wounded/dead
15 vehicles damaged/destroyed
8 tanks damaged/destroyed
1 drone downed
And a speech by Abu Obeida, the main points:
Our forces are still in the field confronting the aggression and inflicting heavy losses to the enemy.
Our forces continue to destroy military vehicles and lure its soldiers into deadly traps and ambushes.
We have targeted 720 military vehicles in total since the ground incursions
Last week, we carried out more than 15 successful sniping operations.
The IOF army is busy with searching for an image of victory and achievement, but is failing.
The lost enemy in crisis has not learned even a single lesson from the experiences of history.
The enemy left our people no choice but to take revenge on them.
The enemy continues to repeat its foolishness and historical mistakes because it is disconnected from the reality of our people and ignorant of its civilization.
The enemy’s goal of eliminating the resistance is doomed to failure.
The continuation of the aggression does not allow the release of prisoners
If the enemy wants his prisoners alive, they have no choice but to stop the aggression.
We salute our nation’s fighters who confuse the enemy, especially on the Yemen and Lebanon fronts.
Your Thursday Briefing
Poland's new PM, Donald Tusk, has taken the public broadcaster off the air, and the heads of the TVP state broadcaster and Polish Radio were replaced to "depoliticize" them and have them provide "reliable information". The fascist PiS party has said that this indicates Poland is heading towards dictatorship, while the PiS-controlled media regulator has said this is “an act of lawlessness and recalls the worst times of martial law,” a reference to 1981. Polish nationalists have been trying to occupy state TV offices to protest.
South Korean carmaker Hyundai has announced that it is selling its factory in Russia for $77. Not $77 million or thousand, just 77 bucks. This means they will have a loss of $220 million. It wants to transfer its St. Petersburg assets by the end of the month. Non-western brands will likely fill the void; Russia is already China's largest car export market.
Ethiopia and Egypt have once again failed to reach an agreement over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which will ultimately produce 6000 MW, enough to turn Ethiopia into a net exporter of electricity. Egypt obviously does not want the downstream water to be curtailed, while Ethiopia wants to generate electricity, but despite repeated attempts to find a compromise between them, none have been reached so far. Ethiopia is not pausing its operations despite a lack of agreement, continuing to fill up the reservoir and get the dam fully online.
In the midst of an economic crisis caused by gestures vaguely, Ghana, the world's second largest cocoa producer, is having production increasingly disrupted by illegal mining and smuggling. To survive, farmers are having to sell their land to illegal miners, which is more profitable than growing cocoa. Ghana has gone from ~1 million tonnes of cocoa in 2020 to 750,000 tonnes for 2022-2023, and ~700 tonnes for 2023-2024. Ghana's government tries to increase the profitability of cocoa production by first buying the cocoa and then selling it on to private corporations and thus can boost prices for producers (and agreed to a 63% increase this year) but this is insufficient.
A town in Michigan has successfully fought the insidious communist influence of China by protesting against an American subsidiary of a Chinese company that wanted to build an electric vehicle battery cell factory in their town which would have provided 2500 jobs. Xi Jinping is reportedly day-drinking after failing his mission to destroy American democracy by establishing a surveillance network in Michigan via tracking microchips maliciously inserted in the batteries. Long live the gasoline car!
Russian Defense Minister Shoigu has estimated that Ukraine has lost over 383,000 troops, killed and wounded, since the beginning of the war, as well as 14,000 tanks, IFVs and APCs, 553 warplanes, 259 helicopters, 8500 artillery pieces, and MLRSes.
China has multiple institutions dedicated specifically for rare earths research and refining, while the West has virtually none
China previously tried to reduce its exports of REEs in 2010, which initially sent prices soaring but they came down (albeit at a significantly elevated price still) a couple years after. This prompted a bunch of investment into REE research and mining in the West but hilariously, when China reopened its exports fully in 2015, the market prices fell to the degree that those facilities and mines weren't profitable to invest in anymore, so most of them went bankrupt. So Western economists' inability to think more than a quarter ahead was pretty effectively taken advantage of by China
Obviously, this is a different ballgame, reducing REE processing machines rather than REEs themselves. One possible idea here is that China doesn't want to spook the poor shortsighted neoliberals by doing what they did in 2010, but also wants to maintain its supremacy in the field, and this seems like it could at least hypothetically work. I expect the US and EU will have a big temper tantrum about it and dedicate funding to catching up, but this will be forgotten about a year later as the economic crisis continues and the copper wiring continues to be stripped from the walls and handed to the capitalists. "Why are we spending so much money with so little return!? We're in a profitability crisis for god's sake!"
Naked Capitalism: US, Allies Opening New Front in Middle East With Escalation Against Houthis Over Shipping Lanes
There's discussion about to what extent the US can respond to Ansarallah's attacks. Speculation is that the fleet present around Yemen right now can fire 400-800 anti-missile/drone missiles - that is, if Yemen has about a thousand missiles+drones or more, the fleet is fucked unless they can resupply (and that isn't trivial; they'd have to return to port and everything, and you can't just leave your aircraft carrier in the sea while your destroyers are away resupplying). Probably explains why they're bringing a third aircraft carrier group over.
It seems to me that the impact of the blockade is largely symbolic. That's not to say it isn't having a sizable impact on the Israeli economy - it definitely is - but the route all the way around Africa doesn't make the route some arduous trek, and if Israel requires a certain commodity then they can certainly get it. The bigger factor here is that the global hegemon is unable to defend its shipping routes despite having two - soon, three - aircraft carriers in the region, as well as a number of regional allies. Given how much of the financial economy is speculation (read: vibes based), bad vibes can actually have an impact.
Truthfully, I think there's too many unknowns to be able to predict with any great accuracy what would happen beyond that it would be a gigantic and expensive (materially, in terms of missiles used) pain in the ass for the United States even if none of their ships are sunk, and who knows how far Ansarallah will truly go. I don't doubt their beliefs and militant statements per se, I've just been made very cynical over the last couple years about thr concepts of verbally given red lines which are unceremoniously stepped over by the West; I'm definitely a believer in the saying "Don't make promises you can't keep."
Of course, Yemen has already done their fair share compared to most other countries on the planet, so I would be a lot less angry with them not really trying to start a war against the US (and they still very well might!) compared to watching Russia do essentially nothing as Biden clumsily drove his golf cart over 20 red lines in a row. Hearing "Don't send X weapon to Ukraine!" from Russia should basically be interpreted as a masochist saying "Oh no, it would be a real shame if you whipped me for the 45th time! Don't do it!" Again, not saying that Russia should have started bombarding Poland or whatever, just that they should have shut the fuck up if their threats have nothing behind them. Compare this to Hezbollah, who has responded tit-for-tat with Israeli strikes into Lebanon, AND haven't constantly fucking bleated about red fucking lines every time. The threat is implicit, they don't have to say it!
Anyway, on to the first part of the article:
... So we have the spectacle of the US, a supposed naval power, unable to protect critical sea lanes. Can’t have that, now can we?
Mind you, it is not clear what good a convoy, which looks to be the immediate response, will do in the face of drone and ballistic missile attacks. Yes, it will put more defensive firepower in the theater. But the number of missiles and difficulty of resupply means there is a possibility, even a pretty good one that the Houthis can simply exhaust the firepower that can be delivered via the Operation Prosperity Guardian warships.
And that’s before getting to logistics issues, that to a degree, maybe a big degree, various vessels have particular launch platforms, so missiles are not very fungible across ships. So this the convoy could wind up being a high cost temporizing measure. Would the West try to move to a Plan B before it became hopelessly evident that it was outmatched by the proverbial guys in sandals, now with the force levelers of drones and ballistic missiles? Of course, events in the from of damage to convoy ships could overtake events.
So what might next steps be, if the big bad Western forces fail to trounce the Houthis quickly? Maybe the Biden Administration works up the nerve to tell Israel no more weapons for you if you don’t cut it out in Gaza. You can be sure the hawks will call for strikes on Iran to make them rein in the Houthis (when I doubt Iran has operational control) and/or a ground attack on Yemen. I consider the latter to be nuts. We saw from the Gulf Wars it took months to pre-position men and weapons, and that was when we had a better army. And by all accounts, the Houthis would be as hard as the Afghanis to defeat, between their native tenacity, their very decentralized structure, and the defense-friendly terrain.
Well, I've tried to talk to my friends and convince them that a Maoist revolution in which we start a guerilla war from our local forest is the only way to destroy the bourgeoisie, but I just get weird looks, so we might have to try to meet people where they are and form solidarity networks and political parties instead
The above list is very radical for the imperial core, friend. Even people who self-describe as socialists and communists - already a fraction of a fraction of the population - probably only do a couple of things on that list.
Agreed, I think Sinwar and Nasrallah are infinitely savvier leaders and negotiators than Zelensky and his band of fascists, and militarily their plans have been pretty damn effective so far. I trust that they know what they're doing better than any of us.
Ten Ways to Become a Stronger Comrade
As western communists in the 2020s, we find ourselves uniquely situated in time and space. For many, it is a time of high emotions and increasing revolutionary consciousness, but a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness has infected the hearts of many others. Have you felt that you have nothing material to contribute to the struggle? Instead of continuing to doom-scroll or fill your time with bourgeois distractions, here are ten concrete ways you can become a stronger comrade right now.
In order:
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Learn a new language, especially that of the largest minority group in your country (e.g. Spanish in the US).
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Learn first aid and CPR, as well as how to administer narcan.
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Meet your neighbours, whether knocking on their doors or leaving them a note to meet up at a third space, or leaving them a gift to construct goodwill.
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Join or start a reading group.
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Know where your closest community resources are.
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Brush up on protest safety, both physically and legally.
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Pay attention to local boycotts, lists of union-made goods, and BDS lists - don't cross picket lines.
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Volunteer in your community and join organizations.
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Learn history and theory.
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Actual self-care, like getting good sleep and touching grass, not whatever the hell neoliberals are calling self-care these days
"Every night, when I close my eyes, I can see somebody coming towards me with an electroprobe. And I can't run, I'm just paralyzed, and they're getting closer and closer to my asshole..."