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.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
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.
@[email protected] on upcoming Iraqi elections including a rundown of all major parties by region. A lot of juice in this one.
DM me to highlight good comments from this week’s newsmega.
track name ? wanna add it to my playlist
No$hu - Class Conscious
thx
A lot of juice in this one.
On Hecks Bear, we do not WASTE! When to the megathread the LargePenis comes, we make sure to get ALL the JUICE!!!
deleted by creator
Holy shit the LargePenis Iraq breakdown dropped. I haven’t read it yet, but it definitely belongs here.
Holy shit the LargePenis Iraq breakdown dropped.
Noted, I’ll add it soon. Also, this is a good site tagline.
I wonder when I can start making effort post I need to read more theory…
Regular day under US cultural/media/economic hegemony:
All Muslims are terrorists except for al Qaeda which is the legitimate government of Syria. In the UK now Al Qaeda Emir Joolani who was just this week removed from terrorist list but Pal Action is still proscribed.
Bashar al Assad was a comically corrupt supervising straight out of a marvel film and if you disagree then you are an “authoritarian” “axis of resistance ideologue” who is “denying atrocities.” Sednaya prison was the worst thing imaginable and deserved global multilingual media attention but Sisi’s dungeons with pro-Palestine demonstrators and al Saud’s significant increase in death penalty including minors (in some cases over social media posts!) are not even worth mentioning at all.
Popular Mobilization Units in Iraq are “Iranian power projection” but two decades of US occupation and its naked threats against the Iraqi government is “US influence”.
Argentinian President Javier Milei fell victim to fake news involving the band AC/DC, which has a concert scheduled in the country for March next year.
Javier Milei shared fake news on social media saying that AC/DC had invited him to sing with the band at the River Plate stadium, the venue for the concert in Argentina.
The post shared by an internet user also contained the following sentence: “I’ve been preparing my whole life to see Javo sing Thunderstruck,” referring to the president, whose nickname is Javo, and one of AC/DC’s classics, featured on the album The Razors Edge (1990).
“LET’S GOOOOO,” Milei wrote on his social media account X. Although the president deleted his post, the “fake news” moment was recorded by Argentine internet users. “I can’t wait to buy tickets to see Javo, and get to see AC/DC for free,” joked one of them in his reply on X, while Milei’s post was still online.
- Telegram
Today in Satan’s embassies on the mortal plane: 40 airports to reduce traffic by 10% due to government shutdown.
full list
Anchorage International (ANC) Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) Boston Logan International (BOS) Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) Dallas Love (DAL) Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) Denver International (DEN) Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) Newark Liberty International (EWR) Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International (FLL) Honolulu International (HNL) Houston Hobby (HOU) Washington Dulles International (IAD) George Bush Houston Intercontinental (IAH) Indianapolis International (IND) New York John F Kennedy International (JFK) Las Vegas Harry Reid International (LAS) Los Angeles International (LAX) New York LaGuardia (LGA) Orlando International (MCO) Chicago Midway (MDW) Memphis International (MEM) Miami International (MIA) Minneapolis/St Paul International (MSP) Oakland International (OAK) Ontario International (ONT) Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) Portland International (PDX) Philadelphia International (PHL) Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) San Diego International (SAN) Louisville International (SDF) Seattle/Tacoma International (SEA) San Francisco International (SFO) Salt Lake City International (SLC) Teterboro (TEB) Tampa International (TPA)Today in why your grandparents are sad: The Farmer’s Almanac is shutting down after 208 years[1] due to “today’s chaotic media environment” and financial challenges. Note the the Old Farmer’s Almanac is still in operation, as they are two completely different things.
There are also a list of “covered events” in the award terms that would allow Musk to earn shares without meeting the required operational milestones.
Covered events include natural disasters, wars, pandemics, and changes to “international, federal, state and local law, regulations or other governmental action or inaction,” that could hamper the company’s ability to design, manufacture or sell its products down the line.
Am I misreading or does this just incentivize Nazi Elon Musk to start a war for his trillion dollars?
Despite having normal diplomatic relations with
since 1992 Kazakhstan to enter “Abraham Accords”The drones in Belgium are back, yet again. This time above an airport, nuclear power plant, and nuclear research centre. Belgium requested aid as they’ve failed to shoot down the drones. Members of the German army were sent to assist in taking them down.
Just wtf is going on? This isnt like the NJ “drone” flap where its mostly just videos of obvious planes and helicopters. Airspace is being heavily disrupted by drones that can’t be jammed by current means that evade pursuers while running for the border when confronted. Belgium is taking it pretty seriously.
Common explanations so far:
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Aliens
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Russia
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China
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The US
Aliens I’ll leave to you to decide on.
Russia isnt amazingly likely. If they had drones this good they’d be using them. Putin already directly denied it, for whatever that’s worth.
China isnt impossible, but the drones are believed to be pretty damn advanced. If China had it, they wouldn’t be using it to disrupt airports and scare Euros. They’d be keeping it close to their chests.
The angle on the US is that these are basically here to extort protection money. If they can’t even stop a bunch of drones, clearly they need to buy more weapon systems from America. I’m leaning toward this being unlikely for the same reason as China, but also the entire American government is 12 now and that’s a 12 year olds idea of a good plan.
The interesting claim in the UFO communities(oh hell yeah we’re going there) is that they’ve been following nukes. The earlier locations, like Lakenheath, are places where the US keeps their bombs. Similarly, its believed they have nukes in Belgium too.
This further attaches to the UFOs and nukes connection, which is interesting to read about. Just take it with a grain of salt. (Take aaaaall of this with a grain of salt, obviously)
The drones don’t need to be aliens to possibly be surveying nukes. That’s also something that China probably already did, because knowing where the nukes are is important.
The final possibility is that its all made up. The US isnt going for protection money, Belgium is just inventing this to justify increased military spending. I don’t think this is likely either because they can just increase military spending and no one really cares.
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Tesla shareholders approved a guaranteed $128 BILLION pay package for Elon Musk, with the ability to earn a lot more (up to $1 trillion in multiple tiers).
For perspective, Tesla’s total net income since 2003 is around $45 billion.
The Electrek article on this is very good, also highlighting how Tesla shareholders voted multiple times to give themselves less power.
“Chinese stocks and gold are the best hedges against an AI meltdown,” per Bank of America, $BAC.
Lmao
More Perfect Union @MorePerfectUS:
In a new podcast Sam Altman says: " When something gets sufficiently huge … the federal government is kind of the insurer of last resort, as we’ve seen in various financial crises … given the magnitude of what I expect AI’s economic impact to look like, I do think the government ends up as the insurer of last resort."
https://apnews.com/article/sandwich-throwing-trial-justice-department-a2776c568a1ea4b8ce5b6af606669b63 Sandwich guy found not guilty
Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, documents seen by Reuters show. And the social media giant internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day. Among its responses to suspected rogue marketers: charging them a premium for ads – and issuing reports on ’Scammiest Scammers.’
