Image is sourced from this article depicting the 28th ASEAN Plus Three Summit, which took place at the same time as the 47th ASEAN Summit.

Last week concluded the 47th summit of ASEAN in Malaysia as well as a swathe of concurrent summits surrounding ASEAN. For those unfamiliar, formally, China is not a member of ASEAN, but is part of the ASEAN Plus Three (as part of the “Three”, alongside Japan and Occupied Southern Korea). And while not really ASEAN, there is also a yet wider organization, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which tacks on Australia and New Zealand to the group of countries that are currently in ASEAN (which is the single largest trade bloc on the planet). At the summit, Timor-Leste was officially introduced into ASEAN, making it the 11th country to do and the first since Cambodia in 1999.

Many important figures throughout Asia, as well as Trump, Ramaphosa, and Lula, attended the event. As you can imagine, Trump’s appearance was not exactly positive - signing four rather coerced bilateral deals there, including with Malaysia, which forced those countries to buy American goods in exchange for certain exemptions from Trump’s high tariff regime. The US is currently in a bit of a panic due to China restricting access to rare earths, a critical component of many weapons technologies (and electronics in general) and is looking around for countries to help supply them. After the summit, the US and China signed a deal related to tariffs and rare earths, but it seems very unlikely that this is the end of the saga; the US politically, economically, and militarily cannot tolerate China’s existence as a sovereign actor and will try to overcome them until the American Empire topples.

Meanwhile, China did as they ordinarily do, and urged higher regional integration and trade without high tariffs, as well as adherence to the Global Governance Initiative (which, as we here never tire of noting, is an interesting thing to try and encourage while the US only more feverishly violates the sovereignty of nations everywhere). One hopes they’re supplying a bit more than just speeches to Venezuela, Cuba, and beyond, as the US prepares to start bombing.

Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.

  • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    64·
    4 days ago

    OpenAI Would Like Federal Backstop For Data Center Investments, CFO Says – WSJ

    Hey, we all know that we will need a bailout. So why not just skip all the nonsense and do a pre-bailout?

    Unrelated, from Ft:

    Deutsche Bank is exploring ways to hedge its exposure to data centers. It’s looking at options including shorting a basket of AI-related stocks and buying default protection via synthetic risk transfers.

    https://www.ft.com/content/c0428010-1373-463e-91e6-8fe7d64a26df

    • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      38·
      4 days ago

      OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar suggested the market is overly focused on anxiety about a possible bubble in the artificial intelligence sector and should muster more “exuberance” about the technology’s potential. “I don’t think there’s enough exuberance about AI, when I think about the actual practical implications and what it can do for individuals,” Friar said in an onstage interview at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference in California on Wednesday. “We should keep running at it.”

      Jesus Christ.

    • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      26·
      4 days ago

      No don’t worry, Deutsche Bank says it’s fine.

      Deutsche analysts said in late September that concerns were overplayed, after using AI to analyse how many mentions of an AI bubble there were in English language publications since the start of the year. They concluded: “One AI bubble has already burst — the bubble in saying there’s a bubble.”

    • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      20·
      4 days ago

      synthetic risk transfers.

      So a pile of credit default swaps? They don’t want to say that.

      AFAIK much of the AI Datacenter money has come from retained earnings, equity and not debt. It’ll crash but I believe it won’t be as bad as 2008.

      • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        24·
        4 days ago

        Quarterly AI debt buildup is estimated at around ~$100 billion

        Meta is hiding $30 billion in AI infrastructure debt off its balance sheet using special purpose vehicles, echoing the financial engineering that triggered Enron’s collapse and the 2008 mortgage crisis. Morgan Stanley estimates tech firms will need $800 billion from private credit in off-balance-sheet deals by 2028. UBS notes AI debt building at $100 billion per quarter “raises eyebrows for anyone that has seen credit cycles.”

        Off-balance-sheet debt through SPVs or joint ventures is becoming the standard for AI data center deals. Morgan Stanley structured Meta’s $30 billion in an SPV tied to Blue Owl Capital, making it easier to raise another $30 billion in corporate bonds. Musk’s xAI is pursuing a $20 billion SPV deal where its only exposure is paying rent on Nvidia chips via a 5-year lease. Google backstops crypto miners’ data center debt, recording them as credit derivatives.