afellowkid

joined 2 years ago
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1
"Kazatomprom, world's largest uranium producer, flashes red" "West risks losing access to 43% of global uranium supply" (theoregongroup.substack.com)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml to c/production@lemmygrad.ml
0 comments fedilink
 

I found this article to be interesting as it talks a bit about methods of mining uranium, as well as talks about a current issue regarding a shortage of a necessary ingredient of that process (sulfuric acid), while also going over issues in how to transport uranium supply to the West in light of sanctions on transport routes through Russia and recent deals with China. In general the article is just stressing how precarious the West's supply of uranium from Central Asia may be, and highlighting that China and Russia are much better positioned to trade with that region. Also a mention of how France has been prompted to rely more on Central Asia for uranium in light of the instability of sourcing uranium from Niger.

  • Kazatomprom, world's largest uranium producer, warns of production shortfall
  • logistical issues, eg transport and shortages in sulfuric acid could take years to fix
  • concerns long-term supply contracts prioritize Russia and China over the West

Kazatomprom is the world's largest and, arguably, most important uranium producer, accounting for 23% of global supply in 2022. To put in context, that's double the next largest producer, Cameco in Canada.

The company has now warned production will be 20% below levels allowed by permits in 2024, with production impacted possibly into 2025. The warning comes just as uranium prices are approaching historic highs with significant fallout across the global energy and nuclear sector.

Critically, as we'll get to shortly, Kazatomprom mines exclusively with in-situ leach (ISL) methods (or, in-situ recovery (ISR)), which involves dissolving the ore while it's still in the ground with acid and soda, and then pumping the solution to the ground where it can be recovered with no tailings, waste or disturbance on the surface. [...] The main problem, ostensibly, is that they don't have enough sulfuric acid, essential for in-situ leaching, to raise output levels. [...] The problem is so acute that Kazatomprom plans to construct a new sulfuric acid plant in the Turkestan region to produce 800,000 tonnes of sulfuric acid per year. However, it's only expected to be ready in 2026.

The deals between Kazatomprom and both Russia and China threaten to squeeze out Western access. [...] China has just signed a long-term contract to procure a significant amount of uranium — for domestic consumption, not for export. The West, we suspect, would also be reluctant to trade vulnerable supply chains through Russia for supply chains through China. [...] In the high-stakes Great Game of resource control in Central Asia, any sudden and severe tightening of global uranium supply threatens to expose the West's precarious position compared to its competitors.

Muh white people 😭 in c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 8 months ago

Here's a documentary about it that leaves out most of the blood and gore that you could easily find if you looked: Donbass (2016). You will see a bit of people being burned to death in this documentary and some other injuries but not to the extent you could find in other videos of the time.

Here's a scene of the burning of the trade union building in 2014. Russian speakers were protesting regarding the repeal of a law which protected Russian as a minority language (or as the Ukrainian former soldier in the video states, they were "contesting a ban on the Russian language in Ukraine.") The protestors hid in the trade union building when Ukrainian right wing nationalists showed up. Eventually, the Ukrainian nationalists set fire to the building and many of the protesters burned to death, with those who jumped out of the windows getting beaten to death by the Ukrainian nationalists. (See also: "Burnt Alive in Odessa").

If you can stomach seeing bodies blown up in the streets, limbs removed, dead babies, and footage of people dying, there are other documentaries around which show it. It's not hard to find footage like this from 2014 onwards. E.g., Result of a 2014 shelling by Ukrainian military (CW: Numerous dead bodies); More aftermath of a shelling (CW: Extremely graphic, numerous mutilated bodies, and footage of a person dying).

You can make up your own mind about the conflict's particulars as you learn about it, but it's a mistake to ignore events happening before 2022 or treat them as insignificant.

General Discussion Thread - Juche 112, Week 52 (highjacked christmas edition) in c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 8 months ago

I'd be really interested in reading that

North Korean Pleasure Squads: are they real? in c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

When reading books written in the imperial core, about the enemies/targets of imperialist nations, I would keep this in mind:

Former CIA case officer John Stockwell: Well for example, in my war, the Angola war, that I helped to manage, one third of my staff was propaganda. [...] We would take stories which we would write and put them in the Zambia Times, and then pulled them out and sent them to a journalist on our payroll in Europe. But his cover story, you see, would be what he had gotten from his stringer in Lusaka, who had gotten them from the Zambia Times. We had the complicity of the government of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda if you will, to put these false stories into his newspapers. But after that point, the journalists, Reuters and AFP, the management was not witting of it. Now, our contact man in Europe was. And we pumped just dozens of stories about Cuban atrocities, Cuban rapists--in one case we had the Cuban rapists caught and tried by the Ovimbundu maidens who had been their victims, and then we ran photographs that made almost every newspaper in the country of the Cubans being executed by the Ovimbundu women who supposedly had been their victims.

Interviewer: These were fake photos?

Stockwell: Oh, absolutely. We didn't know of one single atrocity committed by the Cubans. It was pure, raw, false propaganda to create an illusion of communists, you know eating babies for breakfast and the sort. Totally false propaganda.

Interviewer: John, was this sort of thing practiced in Vietnam?

Stockwell: Oh, endlessly. A massive propaganda effort in Vietnam in the '50s and in the '60s, including the thousand books that were published--several hundred in English--that were also propaganda books sponsored by the CIA. Give some money to a writer, "Write this book for us, write anything you want, but on these matters, make sure, you know, you have this line."

Interviewer: Writers in this country? Books sold and distributed in this culture?

Stockwell: Sure. Yeah. English language books, meaning an American audience as a target, on the subject of Vietnam and the history of Vietnam, and the history of Marxism, and supporting the domino theory, et cetera.

Interviewer: Without opening us up to a lawsuit, could you name one of them?

Stockwell: No, I could not. The Church Committee, when they found this out, demanded that they be given the titles so that the university libraries could at least go and stamp inside "Central Intelligence Agency's version of history," and the CIA refused because it's been commissioned to protect its sources and methods, and the sources would be the authors who wrote these false propaganda books, some of whom are now distinguished scholars and journalists.

Source (video interview)

Also note:

  • It's a recognized problem in south Korea that "time and time again, conservative outlets and foreign media circulate and reproduce rumors [about DPRK] based on questionable sources ... retractions and apologies are rarely ever provided when the reports are shown to be false" and "Sometimes, the South Korean government itself has been the epicenter of false reports ... The situation has been made worse by defector groups aggressively proliferating claims from unverified 'North Korean sources,' as if attempting to draw attention to themselves."

  • South Korea's national intelligence service (NIS) forges documents to frame people and tortures them into false confessions as well as pays defectors for sensational stories and harasses and silences people who say positive things about DPRK (and takes away their passports so they can't go back, even when they came to south Korea against their will)

  • UN human rights researchers who have worked directly with defectors from DPRK have written about how testimonies are made unreliable by cash incentives paid by the NIS and other organizations: "North Korean refugees are well aware of what the interviewer wants to hear. ... The more terrible their stories are, the more attention they receive. The more international invitations they receive, the more cash comes in. It is how the capitalist system works: competition for more tragic and shocking stories. ... In my 16 years of studying North Korean refugees, I have experienced numerous inconsistent stories, intentional omission and lies. I have also witnessed some involved in fraud and other illicit activities. In one case the breach of trust was so significant that I could not continue research."

Edit: So, to summarize -- Former CIA case officers have discussed how they pay academics and journalists to write thousands of books about foreign communist enemies that contain whatever content the author wants as long as it pushes certain specific lines; the CIA regularly plants false stories into foreign newspapers and gets them circulated around; the NIS (formerly the "KCIA", formed on the US-backed side during the Korean War to combat communists) is known to forge documents, extract false confessions, pay people to lie or embellish to the point that mainstream south Korean liberal media and UN researchers say it's making it too hard to tell what's true; defectors with sensational stories receive payments and get book deals and international speaking tours while people with positive things to say get arrested and surveilled by intelligence agencies...So, keep that info in mind as you consider what's going on with these books.

Back in 2009, Brookings Institution published a policy paper that outlines plans to provoke a war with Iran in c/us_news@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The New Atlas touches on and reads some quotes from this paper a bit in this video: https://www.yewtu.be/watch?v=MWzF5NvFdOs&t=2507s (@41:54)

A very normal quote from the paper:

...it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.)

An example of what's discussed in the New Atlas video:

[Brian Berletic speaking about the paper] They also laid out the the whole Iran nuclear deal, they didn't mention it by name, but they were talking about a deal they would propose to Iran, deliberately sabotage, blame its failure on Iran, and then use that as a pretext for military aggression. So it says, "in a similar vein any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper International context both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to and minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support, however grudging or covert, is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer"--and they're talking about a widespread conviction--not an understanding of a fact, but the belief in a US fabricated lie--so they say to "strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer, one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down" because, for the wrong reasons they admit in this paper--and many other policy papers, including from the Rand corporation--that if Iran ever did have nuclear weapons they would be used solely as a deterrent.

It says, "under those circumstances the United States or Israel could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians brought it upon themselves by refusing a very good deal." I mean remember shortly after this paper was published, under the Obama Administration the Iran nuclear deal was proposed. Eventually it was signed, it was implemented, the Iranians adhered to it, and then under the Trump Administration it was the US unilaterally withdrew from it, blaming Iran, just as the Brookings institution spelled out. And the Biden administration was supposed to reinstate it, but of course that was never going to happen because that was not the plan as laid out by the real policy makers of US foreign policy, these unelected, corporate-funded think tanks.

These think tanks produce these policy papers, teams of lawyers craft parts of these policy papers into bills, the bills go with lobbyists to Washington to be rubber stamped--many people in Washington don't even read them--and then the bill is sent to the corporate media to sell these policies to the public. It's very important to understand how the US really operates where foreign and domestic policy really stem from. Not your elected representatives, unfortunately. The fact that this Brookings institution ploy to propose sabotage, unilaterally withdraw from and then use a deal with Iran as a pretext for military aggression transcended the Obama, Trump, and Biden Administration. This demonstrates the continuity of US foreign policy regardless of who sits in the White House and whoever is running Congress.

28
Blinken struggles to give speech about US strength and leadership and supporting Ukraine and Israel while activists shout demands for ceasefire and are pulled from the room by Capitol Police (@56:44) (www.youtube.com)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml to c/us_news@lemmygrad.ml
6 comments fedilink
 

Video's content begins @56:44

For a quick look of the general vibe see @1:04:32

"We now stand at a moment where many are again making the bet that we’re too divided, we’re too distracted at home to stay the course..." says Blinken in his speech about supporting Israel and Ukraine, as he is repeatedly disrupted by activists demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to funding genocide and are gradually pulled out of the room one-by-one by the Capitol Police.

Remarks on the State Department website: https://www.state.gov/opening-remarks-by-secretary-antony-j-blinken-before-the-senate-appropriations-committee-on-a-review-of-the-national-security-supplemental-request/

The several statements and chants by activists demanding an end to the bombing of Gaza and genocide of Palestinians are listed only as "(Interruption.)" in the transcript.

I just happened to be reading that transcript and was curious what the repeated "interruptions" were, assuming it would be something like this, so I checked the video out. In the vid you can see the tense atmosphere as Blinken attempts to deliver his soulless advertisement-like speech in a firm optimistic or "inspiring" tone, making statements about how the US's adversaries have assessed the US is internally divided but the US is actually a resilient and strong leader, while the chairwoman has to keep hitting the gavel and pausing the hearing as activists shouting "genocide" at Blinken are dragged out one by one by the cops, while Blinken sits in a tense, irritated, and pathetic posture and then keeps trying to continue with his sales pitch tone between interruptions and being called a genocide supporter, with others sitting in the hearing behind him looking variously annoyed, drained, and bleak

but do they serve in occupation army? in c/shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 10 months ago

With Whom are Many U.S. Police Departments Training? With a Chronic Human Rights Violator – Israel

Baltimore law enforcement officials, along with hundreds of others from Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington state as well as the DC Capitol police have all traveled to Israel for training. Thousands of others have received training from Israeli officials here in the U.S.

These trainings put Baltimore police and other U.S. law enforcement employees in the hands of military, security and police systems that have racked up documented human rights violations for years. [...] Public or private funds spent to train our domestic police in Israel should concern all of us. Many of the abuses documented, parallels violations by Israeli military, security and police officials.

Israeli forces trained cops in ‘restraint techniques’ at Minneapolis conference

Officers from the U.S. police force responsible for the killing of George Floyd received training in restraint techniques and anti-terror tactics from Israeli law enforcement officers.

In a chilling testimony, a Palestinian rights activist said that when she saw the image of Derek Chauvin kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck, she was reminded of the Israeli forces’ policing of the occupied territories.

Neta Golan, co-founder of International Solidarity Movement (ISM), said: “When I saw the picture of killer cop Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd by leaning in on his neck with his knee as he cried for help and other cops watched, I remembered noticing when many Israeli soldiers began using this technique of leaning in on our chest and necks when we were protesting in the West Bank sometime in 2006.

“They started twisting and breaking fingers in a particular way around the same time. It was clear they had undergone training for this. They continue to use these tactics—two of my friends have had their necks broken but luckily survived—and it is clear that they [Israel] share these methods when they train police forces abroad in ‘crowd control’ in the U.S. and other countries including Sudan and Brazil.”

Suggestion for DPRK in c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Video channels, playlists, etc.

DPRK Explained - A YouTube channel which explains various things about DPRK.

DefendKorea - "Sharing information from the DPRK and countering the regime-change narrative in favor of peace, reconciliation, and reunification of Korea."

푸옹 Phuong DPRK Daily - "Daily uploads of videos related to the DPRK, news, revolutionary politics, daily life, history, culture, etc. This channel is private and has no official ties to the DPRK."

SAO Documentary - A group of people on various trips to DPRK filming as they go.

DPRK 360 - Various videos of DPRK. It also has a website with blog posts and panoramic photos of DPRK.

Our Daily Life in North Korea - Videos by Jaka Parker, who I believe is a diplomat who previously lived in DPRK with his family for a while. He has other playlists too such as North Korean Store.

Podcasts

Podcast of KEEP delegation discussing former DPRK visits - Several people in the Korean diaspora who travelled to DPRK on multiple trips a few years ago talk about their experiences going there and about the misconceptions they had about DPRK and discussions they had with DPRK people. Currently they are now involved in activism to undo the US travel ban against north Korea so they can continue their delegation trips.

The modern history of Korea with Ju-Hyun Park, Part 1 - Talks about Korea’s modern history before the division. Discusses the Japanese colonial period and independence struggle, and the beginning of US occupation. Part 2 - Discusses Korea post-division, talks about the Korean war and the history of DPRK and south Korea since then.

The Friendship is Strong: Talking About North Korea - Xiangyu (anti-imperialist rapper) discusses going to DPRK and also talks about working for Young Pioneer Tours.

Blowback Podcast season 3 covers Korean war history, it's very worth learning about Korean history as a whole to really understand DPRK.

Articles, blogs, photos

Young Pioneer Tours - This website has several articles about DPRK, usually with photos too, but they're not really listed anywhere that I know of on the site. But if you use a search engine and include the site name you can probably find articles by them on various topics. Examples of some articles: Sariwon Folklore Village, Golden Triangle Bank, Guide to Wonsan, Domestic North Korean Flights, North Korean Traffic Girls, Vegan Food in North Korea, Tae’an Friendship Glass Factory, North Korean Cuisine, Kwangbok Department Store and Supermarket

Explore DPRK - A website with various info. "As an International Friendship Initiative, we strive to promote mutual understanding and cultural exchange between the people of DPRK and the rest of the world. Our website serves as a platform to share knowledge, experiences, and insights about DPRK with the global community."

DPRK 360 - "Since 2013, Aram Pan has been visiting the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and capturing many aspects of their culture and everyday life."

Avax News, photos tagged "DPRK" - Various pages of photos, when you click "details" you can see multiple photos per post. You can of course try other search terms too.

Korean-language articles (sorry that I don't know an English version of these, but machine translation can help give the main points if you are okay with that):

“Understanding North Korea” - Article series by Tongil Times, especially their 북현대사 (“North Modern History”) series is informative.

“North Korea through the constitution” - Series by Sovereignty Research Institute.

Suggestion for DPRK in c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Books

Modern Korea: The Socialist North, Revolutionary Perspectives in the South, and Unification - Book by DPRK author about the revolution and socialist construction up to 1970

Modern History of Korea - A history book from DPRK

North Korean Journey: The Revolution Against Colonialism - Book by historian from the US who visited DPRK

Sanctions of Empire - A zine by Nodutdol about the sanctions placed on DPRK and other nations. (PDF)

Socialist Education in Korea: Selected Works of Kim Il-Sung (PDF) - "Socialist Education in Korea delves into the history and educational praxis of North Korea in a way that is rarely studied in the US, as this work counters many of the western media narratives against North Korea."

Videos (in English or with English subs)

Hong Kong student delegation to DPRK - Students from Hong Kong hanging out with students from north Korea

North Koreans Talk! New Years Resolutions from North Koreans (2020) - "New Years Eve in North Korea I spent asking North Koreans what their New Year's Resolutions for 2020 are."

May day celebration 2017 - Watch some foreign tour guides hang out with Koreans at a May day celebration event. (More videos from them)

“My Experience at PUST(North Korea)” - A foreign English teacher at a school in DPRK made a documentary about their experience (it was an all male students school at the time but now has male and female students. Here is a student being interviewed)

“I met North Koreans on the Trans-Siberian Railway” - South Korean randomly meets some north Koreans on a trip abroad, turn on subtitles to see their conversation in English

Eid Al-Fitr in North Korea - Video of people in a mosque in DPRK

Pyongyang Centre for the Deaf and Blind - Visit to the center, and here is an article about it.

Night walk through the Ryomyong Street in Pyongyang - "One of the most recognizable newly build apartments in the capital of DPRK."

Video of Pyongyang Public Transport (2019) - Just a video of public transport, as the title says.

Videos (in Korean)

Episode of a south Korean TV show where some people visit north Korea, "Walk Into Pyongyang" - Unfortunately there are not English subtitles, but you could try the auto-translate subs feature on YouTube. But you can see countryside and street scenes and see the tone of interactions between people even if you may not understand Korean. It shows their visit without trying to portray north Korea as scary.

[Docuseries] A north-south Korea joint production about north and south Korean cities, "두 도시 이야기" (Tale of Two Cities) - A post I made with links to episodes of this docuseries. I also summarized an episode here: [Video] "What does Childrens' Day look like in north Korea?"

South Korean family on a road trip meets some North Koreans working in Russia - Just a friendly conversation between north and south Koreans randomly meeting in Russia (the north Koreans spotted the south Koreans pulled over at a gas station, and pulled over to greet them and had a chat, mentioned that they work in Russia but return to DPRK yearly)

Suggestion for DPRK in c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (2019) - DPRK's constitution on Wikisource

DPRK Socio-Economic, Demographic and Health Survey 2014. - Survey co-authored by the United Nations Population Fund and the DPRK’s Central Bureau of Statistics (Related: UNFPA summary of DPRK census population data from 2008).

North Korea’s Surprisingly Robust Healthcare System - Article in Global Asia

ProleWiki page on DPRK - ProleWiki page giving info on DPRK

How was Isn'real created? in c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I am also learning details about this so I will just share what I've been looking at. Some of these I haven't fully read yet, so keep in mind I am just showing you the same things I am learning from in the moment.

How Palestine Became Colonized - Video/documentary overview by Empire Files

Palestine, Israel, and the U.S. Empire - Audiobook released by Liberation School, looks like episodes 3-9 probably deal with what you're asking; I haven't listened to it yet

Palestine 101 - Series of history articles by Decolonize Palestine

Historical details/quotes from "Palestine 101"

The [Ottoman] empire would eventually collapse after its defeat in the first World War [...] It was during the final few decades of this dramatic collapse that a certain Austro-Hungarian thinker, Theodor Herzl, was planting the seeds of a new political movement that would change Palestinian history forever.

Convened in the Swiss city of Basel in 1897, the first Zionist congress included over 200 delegates from all over Europe. [...] While there were other Zionist and proto-Zionist movements preceding this which had settled in Palestine, such as Hibbat Zion, the Zionist congress was the first to organize and marshal the colonization efforts in a centralized and effective way.

In the wake of its defeat in WW1, the Ottoman empire was dissolved and its regions carved up and divided among various European colonial powers. In the Levant, Palestine and Jordan fell under the mandate of the British, while Syria and Lebanon to that of the French. The British entered Jerusalem in 1917, and Palestine officially became a mandate in 1922.

The mandate of Palestine provided a golden opportunity for the Zionist movement to achieve its aims. The British were far more responsive to Zionist goals than the Ottomans were, and had earlier produced the Balfour Declaration promising the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine [...] The British had no genuine sympathy for the plight of the historically oppressed Jewish people; Rather, they saw in the Zionist movement a mechanism through which British interests in the Levant and Suez could be realized.

Emboldened by the Balfour Declaration and supportive British governors, the Zionist movement ramped up its colonization efforts and established a provisional proto-state within a state in Palestine, called the Yishuv. While the Yishuv’s relationship with the British had its ups and downs, the British provided the Zionists with explicit as well as tacit sponsorship which would allow them to thrive. Meanwhile, they would harshly repress any Palestinian movement or organization while turning a blind eye to Zionist expansion, which by the end of the mandate enabled the conquest and mass destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages and neighborhoods.

Deconstructing and debunking Zionism - Another article; I haven't read it all yet, I just skipped to the section "What are the origins of Zionism?"

Historical details/quotes from "Deconstructing and debunking Zionism"

Herzl’s WZO was created in 1897, and identified Palestine as the site of the future Jewish state. With its support, Zionist settlers began to migrate to Palestine. The WZO attempted to gain support for their project from the Ottoman Empire, but their efforts were in vain [...] With the outbreak of WWI, [...] Zionists found official support for their project from the British Empire. The British, then fighting the Ottomans, sought to colonize whatever territories they could seize from the evidently decaying empire.

In 1917, near the close of the war, the British issued the Balfour Declaration. Supporting the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was clearly a component of the aim of claiming the formerly Ottoman-held territories, and would have world-historic consequences. Much of the supplementary support behind the Declaration from British gentiles was motivated by Evangelical Protestantism, which viewed it as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, and, significantly, an antisemitic desire to solve the so-called “Jewish Question” by encouraging Jewish people to leave Europe. Settler migration into Palestine grew significantly following WWI, and Israel as a settler-colonial nation began to emerge.

Under British rule in Mandatory Palestine, native Palestinians began to be displaced by the settlers, being excluded from the labor force and the purchase of land and property, which Zionist settlers confined to other settlers [...] From 1936 to 1939, Arabs revolted against British rule and Zionist settler-colonialism.

The British then issued the 1939 White Paper, restricting further Jewish immigration into Palestine. After WWII and the devastation of the Holocaust, Europe was convinced that their “Jewish Question” could only be answered by pushing Jewish people out of Europe and into a colonial outpost. And significant sections of the Jewish population were convinced the same

Zionists began to migrate into the settlements in even higher numbers, in defiance of the White Paper. Zionists even began to revolt against British rule, seeking to establish Israel as a state. By 1947, the UN created a plan to partition Palestine into two independent states and a neutral Jerusalem, though it failed to implement it. In response to the passage of the plan, the 1947–1948 civil war broke out between Zionists and Palestinians. By 1948, the state of Israel was established.

You f*cking Zionist Bozo !!! in c/shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Gaza Fights for Freedom (2019) - Documentary

How Palestine Became Colonized (2016) - Documentary

Massacres were indispensable to creation of the Israeli state - Article

Letter from Gaza: ‘We prefer to die standing than to give up’ - Article

Electronic Intifada - Journalism outlet

Palestinians get killed when they do nothing, they get killed when they protest peacefully. Western libs continue to fund and ignore the deaths of Palestinians regardless. Palestinians are being murdered en masse now for those who have taken up arms, but their reality has been that they are murdered en masse regardless anyway, because the plan is to remove them (edit: that is to say, "responding" to their resistance is just a pretext, an excuse to kill/remove Palestinians will always be found, no matter what the narrative around it is). Some random liberal who openly admits not knowing much about the situation and refusing to support Palestinian liberation because an organized resistance is too scary for liberal bystanders to think about really means nothing to Palestinians. Westerners, settlers, liberals can debate all they want about it and be sad that Palestinians aren't dying more quietly and politely, but it's a basic reality that people who are being oppressed are going to resist. And when your plan is to remove a people and you silence and kill off and ignore all of their peaceful resistance efforts (of which there always have been and are many, but it's ignored), all that remains is organized militant resistance. If you remain ignorant of it now or only care to genuinely listen to one side then you truly do not give a fuck about stopping violence, you just want to keep having dance parties next to concentration camps.

I'm not going to respond further but good luck in learning, I hope you mean it.

1
The Red Nation podcast: "We Didn't Start the Fire" w/ Vincent Bevins (interview about his latest book) (www.youtube.com)
 

From 2010 to 2020, the world experienced mass protests. Yet, those protests have not brought about more democracy and freedom. Why did these protests lead to the opposite of what they supposedly demanded? In this episode, journalist Vincent Bevins joins the podcast to discuss his latest book, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution (2023).

I haven't read the book, but in this interview they cover the role of mass media in how it portrays and effects street protests, covering examples in Brazil, also touching on the Arab Spring, Euromaidan, and Hong Kong, discussing what the mass media selectively covers and leaves out, how attracting media attention has altered what kind of protests occur, and how decentralized movements without clear demands, a structure of decision making, or plans for how to exercise power are subjected to being co-opted.

Illinois man killed Muslim boy, 6, in hate crime motivated by Israeli-Hamas war, police say in c/us_news@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Apparently the attacker was also their landlord:

According to the Will County sheriff’s office, the woman had called 911 to report that her landlord had attacked her with a knife, adding she then ran into a bathroom and continued to fight him off.

The Muslim civil liberties organization called the crime “our worst nightmare” and part of a disturbing spike in hate calls and emails since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. The group cited text messages exchanged among family members that showed the attacker had made disparaging remarks about Muslims.

23
World Health Organization: Evacuation orders by Israel to hospitals in northern Gaza are a death sentence for the sick and injured (www.who.int)
 

As the United Nation’s agency responsible for public health, the World Health Organization (WHO) strongly condemns Israel's repeated orders for the evacuation of 22 hospitals treating more than 2000 inpatients in northern Gaza. The forced evacuation of patients and health workers will further worsen the current humanitarian and public health catastrophe.

The lives of many critically ill and fragile patients hang in the balance: those in intensive care or who rely on life support; patients undergoing hemodialysis; newborns in incubators; women with complications of pregnancy, and others all face imminent deterioration of their condition or death if they are forced to move and are cut off from life-saving medical attention while being evacuated.

Health facilities in northern Gaza continue to receive an influx of injured patients and are struggling to operate beyond maximum capacity. Some patients are being treated in corridors and outdoors in surrounding streets due to a lack of hospital beds.

Forcing more than 2000 patients to relocate to southern Gaza, where health facilities are already running at maximum capacity and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number of patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence.

Hospital directors and health workers are now facing an agonizing choice: abandon critically ill patients amid a bombing campaign, put their own lives at risk while remaining on site to treat patients, or endanger their patients’ lives while attempting to transport them to facilities that have no capacity to receive them. Overwhelmingly, caregivers have chosen to stay behind, and honor their oaths as health professionals to “do no harm,” rather than risk moving their critically ill patients during evacuations. Health workers should never have to make such impossible choices.

Additionally, tens of thousands of displaced people in northern Gaza are seeking refuge in open spaces in or around hospitals, treating them as havens from violence as well as to protect the facilities from potential attacks. Their lives, too, are at risk when health facilities are bombed.

There are verified reports of deaths of health care workers and destruction of health facilities, which denies civilians the basic human right of life-saving health care and is prohibited under International Humanitarian Law.

WHO calls for Israel to immediately reverse evacuation orders to hospitals in northern Gaza, and calls for the protection of health facilities, health workers, patients, and civilians. WHO also reiterates its calls for the immediate and safe delivery of medical supplies, fuel, clean water, food, and other humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Rafah crossing, where life-saving assistance – including WHO health supplies that arrived earlier today – is currently awaiting entry.

22
UN expert warns of new instance of mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, calls for immediate ceasefire (www.ohchr.org)
 

Excerpts:

Since 7 October 2023, more than 1,900 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 600 children, more than 7,600 injured, and over 423,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Israeli strikes. This fate befell a population which has already experienced five major wars since 2008 in the context of an unlawful blockade imposed by Israel since 2007, which Albanese said has been widely condemned by the international community as collective punishment.

On 12 October, Israeli forces issued an order for 1.1 million Palestinians in north Gaza to move to the south within 24 hours, amidst ongoing airstrikes. The next day, Israeli forces reportedly began to enter Gaza in order to “clear” the area. Palestinians have no safe zone anywhere in Gaza, with Israel having imposed a “complete siege” on the tiny enclave, with water, food, fuel and electricity unlawfully cut off. Rafah, the only border crossing that remained partially open to the Gaza strip, was closed after damage caused by Israeli airstrikes.

“There is a grave danger that what we are witnessing may be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, and the 1967 Naksa, yet on a larger scale. The international community must do everything to stop this from happening again,” the UN expert said. She noted that Israeli public officials have openly advocated for another Nakba, the term for the events of 1947-1949 when over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and lands during the hostilities that led to the establishment of the State of Israel. The Naksa, which led to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, displaced 350,000 Palestinians.

12
UNRWA: Gaza abyss: Civilians are dying at the world's watch (www.unrwa.org)
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2372708

AMMAN/EAST JERUSALEM,

“As Gaza remains under heavy bombardment with Israel tightening its grip over the overpopulated Strip, it is left to the UN and humanitarians to protect civilians.

“The call from Israeli Forces to move more than 1 million civilians living in northern Gaza within 24 hours is horrendous. This will only lead to unprecedented levels of misery and further push people in Gaza into the abyss.

“Since 7 October, over 423,000 people have already been displaced. Of them, more than 270,000 have taken refuge in UNRWA shelters, where basic food, medicine and support is provided to retain dignity and a glimmer of hope.

“The scale and speed of the unfolding humanitarian crisis is bone-chilling. Gaza is fast becoming a hell hole and is on the brink of collapse.

“There is no exception, all parties must uphold the laws of war; humanitarian assistance must be provided at all times to civilians.

“In Gaza, more than 2 million people are caught up in this conflict. UNRWA is struggling to fulfil its mandate.

“I urge all parties and those with influence over them to put an end to this tragedy and provide immediate and unconditional humanitarian access and protection to the civilians, among them far too many women and children.

“The time for humanity to prevail is now.”

ENDs -

Slave killing his slave master, now tell me how the slave master is an innocent victim libs in c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml
[–] afellowkid@lemmygrad.ml 25 points 11 months ago (1 children)

All this week I keep thinking about/looking up Haitian revolution images too...

9
Geopolitical Economy Hour: 2-part conversation between Radhika Desai, Michael Hudson, and Pepe Escobar (lemmygrad.ml)
 

Part 1: NATO failed in Ukraine against Russia. Now it's targeting China (Youtube/Invidious)

Part 2: Anti-China hawks' drive to expand NATO into Asia may destroy Western military alliance (Youtube/Invidious)

Personally I found some of Escobar's comments in part 2, around @8:03 regarding DPRK to be pretty interesting. He talks about how although the Western media focuses on the military aspect of relations between Russia and DPRK, that recently, signs are showing of Russia's intention to help with getting DPRK re-integrated into international trade and especially his comments in regard to building a trans-Korean railway to link with the trans-Siberian railway and how this topic is likely to come up on the next Eastern Economic forum in September. (This railway concept isn't a new one, but I found his comments about recent events interesting) as well as potential inclusion in other trade deals/organizations, etc.

click to see a transcript of his comment on this

[Note: transcript is auto-generated and I didn't clean it up completely]

Escobar: I'd like to focus on something that happened these past few days, which is enormous, and I would say for most of the planet, quite unforeseen: which is Russia bringing back North Korea, the DPRK, to the rank of a very important Global south power with enormous reach...

So, we have Ministry of Defense Sergei shoigu, received like Mick Jagger in Pyongyang. he got a true rock star welcome. the whole thing, including a private audience with Kim Jong-un. and obviously the whole leadership of the dprk.

What leaked, of course, was the possibility of many military agreements and increasing their military collaboration what did not leak is the best part of them all because it's the geo-economic part.

What do the Russians really want to do with the Pyongyang? they want to integrate Pyongyang with South Korea, with Seoul, and of course this will mean Russia developing a sort of go-between diplomacy between both--and they have the possibility to do both because they are also respected in Seoul.

And something that has already been discussed at the Eastern economic Forum in Vladivostok--these discussions they started at least three or four years ago in Vladivostok--and what they're all about, basically, is to build a trans-Korean Railway which is going to connect with the Trans-Siberian and connect both koreas to the Russian Far East and then all the way across Eurasia.

So, imagine that you are a Samsung businessman in Seoul you look at that and said "wow, I'm gonna have--I don't need to to use a cargo tankers anymore, I can have direct access to the enormous developing Market in the Russian Far East, not to mention the whole of Eurasia via Russia just by building a Railway." very very simple.

Which, sooner or later, with--and I would say, with Chinese input, could become a high speed rail. Considering that the Chinese are already investing in a High-Speed Rail in Russia, and considering that if there is a a duplication of the Trans-Siberian into a Trans-Siberian high-speed rail is going to be built by the Chinese, this is a trans Korean Railway could also be built with Chinese input, technical input as well. And financed via a Chinese a Silk Road fund the brics Development Bank, Russian Banks--and it could be a a reorganization of Finance, East Eurasia style.

So, they were discussing that of course. and this is going to be rediscussed and they're going to get deeper into it at the next Eastern economic Forum in Vladivostok in early September. so, it's a around the corner. literally. so so the fact that this is happening now, it's very, very important because this is a sort of uh, preamble to what they're gonna get into at the next Eastern economic Forum.

So, everybody is happy with this Arrangement; North Korea because they are brought back to the Forefront of trade in the parts of, Eurasia, the possibility of having some sort of geo-economic deal between North Korea and South Korea, Russia developing the Far East and integrating the Far East with the koreas, and China, of course, because this also integrates this part of Eurasia this North in Eurasia uh, framework. and it's part of brics. it's part of the Shanghai Corporation organization.

And this opens, I would say, this leaves us with the possibility of North Korea, sooner or later, getting integrated into the Eurasia economic Union. and that's fantastic. because this I see that happening in uh at least two stages. the first stage, the EAEU strikes a free trade agreement with North Korea, just like the ones they have with Cuba, or with Vietnam in Southeast Asia. and they are also working with Indonesia, to have an EAEU free trade deal with Indonesia.

They could also do the same thing with North Korea and--fantastic--this bypasses U.S sanctions! because it's going to be EAEU basically, uh Russia is 80% of the Firepower of the EAEU. they can devise a settlement mechanism involving in North Korea that bypasses the US dollar completely. you have expansion of EaEu to North East Asia which is very important.

The Chinese are going to love it as well because they can also, um, even if they are not part of the EAEU, don't forget that Putin and Xi have already said,and the directives are already there, the Belt and Road initiative--BRI--and EAEU they have to converge. and this would be a perfect example of convergence between BRI and EAEU. so that's why the way I see this visit by shoigu as Mick Jagger, it's extrapolates it everywhere, geoconomically and geopolitically, and it's no wonder that it was not even mentioned, I would say, or barely mentioned in Western mainstream media.

Anyway, just sharing these. They cover a lot of topics in this discussion.

1
CSIS now says that China’s control over gallium is a national security threat for US (features.csis.org)
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/2274037

Excerpts:

Decades of sweeping industrial policies have afforded China a near-total monopoly over gallium, a critical mineral used to produce high-performance microchips that power some of the United States’ most advanced military technologies. Recent moves by Beijing to restrict the export of gallium have laid bare the need for Washington and its allies to de-risk their critical mineral supply chains.

China produces a staggering 98 percent of the world’s supply of raw gallium.

Gallium is primarily extracted from smelting bauxite into aluminum, through which trace amounts of gallium can be recovered.

While bauxite is abundant, its mining is heavily concentrated in a handful of countries, and Chinese companies are responsible for nearly all gallium extracted from bauxite.

The United States and other advanced economies purchase gallium from China and refine it further for use in commercial and military applications.

A 2022 analysis by experts from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found that a 30 percent supply disruption of gallium could have cascading effects that cause a roughly $600 billion decline in U.S. economic output, or 2.1 percent of GDP. [...] The European Union and Japan have likewise identified gallium as a strategic raw material important for national security.

The Chinese government put this vulnerability on display in early July 2023 when it announced a slate of export restrictions on gallium metal and key gallium compounds (including GaN and GaAs) in response to recently implemented export controls on advanced chips and chipmaking equipment put in place by the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands. Within the first week of the announcement, gallium prices jumped 27 percent as global traders rushed to secure their supply.

Chinese companies, empowered by financial and political support from Beijing, have emerged as key players in the production of gallium-based chips. Innoscience, a leading Chinese manufacturer of gallium-based chips, operates two of the world’s largest GaN fabrication facilities and has expanded overseas with offices in the United States, Europe, and South Korea.

Losing ground to Chinese firms in the race for more capable and powerful compound semiconductors will put the United States on the back foot in developing next-generation technologies that will be crucial to military power and economic competitiveness. Beijing’s active role in creating a flourishing domestic ecosystem for gallium-based chips has already benefited China’s military development.

1
How China became the world's industrial superpower - and why the US is desperate to stop it (www.youtube.com)
1
Cooling Our Cities Without Air Conditioning (www.youtube.com)
1
The Mass-Produced Metros of China | Rapid Transit Standardization (www.youtube.com)
1
South Korean companies that invested in US semiconductor factories will have to limit their capacity at their Chinese factories to 5 percent or less for 10 years to receive US subsidies (english.hani.co.kr)
 

There are significant concerns that South Korea could end up losing its cutting-edge semiconductor technology as the US continues prioritizing the revival of its domestic semiconductor industry.

South Korean companies that invested in the US to build semiconductor factories will have to limit their manufacturing capacity at their Chinese factories to 5 percent or less for 10 years in order to receive US subsidies.

While the new regulations are less strict than the previously feared total ban on upgrading manufacturing facilities in China, the shackles being imposed by the US on the domestic semiconductor industry remain weighty.

On Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce announced detailed regulations of the guardrails concerning subsidies for semiconductors. Countries with semiconductor manufacturing factories in China will be able to expand production by up to 5 percent and companies will still be able to produce more semiconductor chips from one wafer through technological development.

...

The excessive information demanded as a condition to receive subsidies from the US, runs the risk that South Korea’s advanced semiconductor technology and business secrets could be leaked. There is even one clause that requires the return of certain subsidies if companies earn more than a certain amount in profits.

...

Although the Biden administration emphasizes the importance of alliances through diplomacy and security, there has been a growing perception in the economic field that the US is causing damage to the alliance with its attitude of “America first” and protectionist policies.

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