Why are conservatives latching onto the Jonathan Ross bodycam footage like it exonerates his murder of Good?

ICE created dangerous situations, “fear for their lives” , brandish weapons and disguise their identities through facemasks, and now feel free to kill with impunity in such a brazen manner but to the conservative mind disrespect = alienation from humanity = okay to kill.

Do we have any more info on the proxy forces that tried to invade Iran from Iraq yesterday? It looks like a planned US & Israeli mission.

A comment on the thread today about news that the US is relocating dozens of fighters to West Asia: https://hexbear.net/post/7297419

From what I heard, they’re preparing a full-frontal assault to Iran.

Source: From one of my relatives in MİT—National Intelligence Organization, Türkiye’s intelligence agency.

Direct link to the comment: https://hexbear.net/post/7297419/6819222

Some interesting commentary from Beijing moves to cut losses in Venezuela after Maduro’s capture Asia Times:

China has drawn up plans to minimize losses in Venezuela and fine-tune its broader overseas investment strategy after the United States captured the Latin American country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, on January 3.

Since the US military operation in Venezuela, the Chinese government has been busily assessing the situation and calculating potential losses to its economic interests.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Chinese officials, media and commentators started expressing their views, showing that Beijing has finished its assessment.

In general, Beijing regrets having put too many eggs in one basket and having been too ready to believe that its investments in Venezuela would face minimal risks under international law. It also admits that it had underestimated the Trump administration’s ambition in the Western Hemisphere.

Some commentators are saying that, in the short run, China wants to ensure it can continue receiving crude oil from Venezuela, which still owes it about US$10 billion to US$20 billion. In the middle and long term, China may seek to sell certain fixed assets in Venezuela to Western firms or form partnerships with them to limit losses.

…

‘Law of the jungle’

When the Trump administration said in its National Security Strategy on December 4 that the US would strategically refocus on the Western Hemisphere, many Chinese commentators initially responded with mockery, arguing that the US was no longer wealthy or capable enough to sustain military dominance simultaneously in the Indo-Pacific, Europe and its own backyard.

That assessment has since shifted sharply, with commentators now acknowledging that Maduro’s capture has had a significant negative impact on Chinese investments in Venezuela and across Latin America.

A Beijing-based columnist surnamed Xu says in his article that China’s long-running oil-for-loans arrangements with Venezuela have left Beijing heavily exposed.

“Since 2007, China has provided Venezuela with US$60 billion in loans. At the end of 2025, more than US$10 billion was still outstanding,” Xu says. “The debt is repaid with crude oil, requiring Venezuela to ship about 610,000 barrels a day to China.”

Xu says that with Maduro’s arrest, China could face substantial losses. He warns that Chinese firms have invested billions of US dollars in Venezuela’s energy sector, including large-scale drilling platforms and upstream oil projects, many of which could be forced to halt, while daily crude oil shipments used for debt repayment could be disrupted.

Such disruptions, he adds, would force refineries in eastern China to seek alternative supplies, potentially driving up oil prices and fuel costs. Besides, a range of Chinese-invested infrastructure, manufacturing and telecommunications projects in Venezuela would face heightened default risks.

We already know that China already switched to Canadian crude since last November, right after the Trump-Xi meeting:

So it’s quite possible that the US gave China some “grace period” to reroute their oil supply before the actual operation in Venezuela. China has also built up a massive amount of strategic petroleum reserves so the oil stock in China should be quite safe for now.

Obviously it’s still early days and much of this kind of commentary is still speculative, but if the US goal in Venezuela is indeed to replicate what they did in Iran with the bombing of nuclear facilities, which is to scare off Chinese investors, then it’s going to have a broader impact to Latin America as a whole, as it did to the ME/NA region where both Russia and China are pulling away their strategic interests from.

Not news, but I have a request for my fellow newsheads: seeing the sanctions on Venezuela, Iran and Cuba, I’ve tried a few times to see the scope of the sanctions, and specifically what they’re consisting of and their measured impact to the economies of said countries. Looking for it, maybe because of my limited English skills, I can’t find anything other than propaganda for the sanctions, and I can’t find any serious study or comprehensive description of the how and the how much of the sanctions. Does anyone have a good resource available to read on it?

There was story told by Vijay Prashad during one of his lectures that always stuck with me and elucidates the nature of Iranian state shortcomings

Vijay was once interviewing an Iranian official sometime in the late 90s I believe and he asked the official pointed questions about Iranian agricultural policy, specifically why Iran refused to buy high quality and cheaper wheat from India and instead insisted on buying low quality yet more expensive wheat from the United States, giving the US sanction leverage over the country’s food supply

The answer the official gave shocked Vijay; the only excuse the official could come up with was “Everyone knows American wheat is better”

With Trump stating that shipments of oil from Venezuela to China will be allowed, coupled with the threats on Mexico, I am becoming increasingly worried that the primary target of all of this is Cuba and to force the government there to collapse by destroying their economy (no oil).

I don’t think this is Trump’s plan, this is all Rubio.

It seems like regarding Venezuela, the US’ plan is less about controlling production and more about distribution. No reason to think they will allow VZ to ship oil to Cuba.

As many here have pointed out, attacking Mexico doesn’t make sense. However, I think the plan is to scare Mexico into allowing the US to have a say in who Mexico is allowed to trade with. And Mexico ships a not insignificant amount of oil to Cuba. This would seemingly align with Sheinbaum’s odd statement about how they have not increased oil shipments to Cuba recently, trying to avoid the attention of the US.

If the US can cut off oil shipments from Mexico and Venezuela to Cuba, I don’t know how Cuba will get critical oil supplies delivered.

Beyond Cuba, it seems to me the US is looking to control trade flows for the entire western hemisphere. The idea is to not only increase the exploitation the US imposes, but to control those trade relationships between Latin America and the rest of the world, to serve the US’ purposes.

I am not someone who is prone to geopolitical pessimism; and I know the commitment to the revolution the Cuban people hold in their hearts… but I am really worried for Cuba right now.

MROnline - ASEAN Summit 2025: Imperialism, Monetary Subservience, and Racial/Class Divisions

I personally do not agree with the presumptions of the article fully, especially it’s characterizations of ASEAN since the ascension of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (ie. since the 21st century). If the organisation was still reliving it’s anti-communist legacy, then why would ostensibly communist Laos and Vietnam join it? (Among I think a general overemphasis of neocolonialism.)

The section below I think covers the most important bit of the article

Mini–Plaza Accords? The 2025 US-Malaysia and US-Thailand Agreements

In October 2025, Bank Negara Malaysia (the Central Bank of Malaysia) announced that it would begin sharing semiannual foreign exchange data with the US Treasury, as part of the US-Malaysia deal. This statement was cloaked in the familiar bureaucratic language of “transparency” and “good governance.” For the first time, Washington will receive a delayed but detailed view of how and when Kuala Lumpur defends the ringgit. The move comes alongside a parallel agreement with the Bank of Thailand, and together they signal the emergence of what might be called a series of modern “mini–Plaza Accords”: arrangements that update the logic of the 1985 Plaza Accord, for a world in which the United States continues to deepen its rule through audit.

Unlike the spectacle of the original Plaza meeting, these new accords do not formally dictate exchange-rate realignments but rather achieve compliance through surveillance. The governments view their participation not only as a way of avoiding the (largely rhetorical) stigma of being labelled “currency manipulators,” but as a means of preserving their own domestic hierarchies.

The timing of these mini-Plazas is no coincidence. Across the Global South, the dollar’s supremacy is under challenge. China and Russia now settle a significant part of their trade in their own currencies; BRICS members are considering building new clearing systems; and central banks across the global South are considering diversifying their reserves. By binding Malaysia and Thailand into permanent data-exchange relationships, the US Treasury is keen to ensure that any regional shift toward renminbi settlement remains observable and, by extension, punishable.

The American ability to impose penalties on central banks completes the picture. Once a central bank begins sharing detailed foreign exchange data with the US Treasury, the bank effectively enters the orbit of the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Aggregated transaction data, even with a time lag, provides Washington with the intelligence needed to detect sanction-evasion patterns. Malaysia’s financial system sits astride trade routes linking China, Iran, and Russia; its banks clear vast amounts of dollar-denominated trade. Under the new framework, Malaysia cannot easily plead neutrality. The awareness that Treasury analysts are watching will ensure that banks over-comply and that regulators self-censor. Sanctions enforcement thus becomes decentralized and invisible, accomplished not through threats but through anticipation of scrutiny and discipline.

The logic resembles the hard dollarization experiment unfolding in Argentina under Javier Milei. There, sovereignty is being surrendered openly, with the promise that adopting the US currency will deliver stability. Malaysia and Thailand offer a softer version of the same faith. They retain their own currencies but outsource discretion, turning their central banks into reporting agents and effectively “financial intelligence units” within the wider dollar system. The difference between Argentina and Malaysia is one of degree rather than kind, since both subscribe to a theology that equates dependence with economic progress.

For Southeast Asia, the implications are profound. Singapore has long been Washington’s principal compliance hub; now Malaysia and Thailand are being woven into the same enforcement matrix, ensuring that ASEAN’s financial channels remain clean of transactions deemed suspicious by Western standards. Indonesia and Vietnam, as their ties with China deepen, will face similar pressure. What appears to be a benign commitment to data-sharing is in fact the construction of a regional hierarchy of compliance. The governments of Malaysia and Thailand have conscripted themselves, seeking safety in the very structure that limits them.

I’m starting to think the US launched the Venezuela operation at a timing they didn’t want. As soon as they finished kidnapping Maduro they started pivoting away towards very likely West Asia dude to the zionist intervention in Iran and the oncoming shitshow in the region.

Then it comes out Trump is conciliatory towards Colombia and maybe Venezuela as well to avoid escalation.

I guess we’ll see.

Exchange rate of USD Tether/Iranian Rial:

Source

Anyone know what happened in Nov-Dec 2025 to cause such depreciation? Did Central Bank stop pumping reserves into the market?

there are way to many situations to keep track of currently …

one of these is : Saudi Arabia is tearing the UAE a new Asshole, they Kicked out UAE from hole south Yemen, anding a 10 yearß presense in a mere 5 days ,(Including Famous Socotra). And now move into Sudan on the Goverments Side. Looks like somebody had a Look on the Map therer and Realised tis little chains that the (very Israel alligned) UAE was building from the gulf to Socotra and Aden and then further into the Sudan. That israel and UAE suddenly recognized Somaliland in Unison seem to be what let to the coin drop. after cutting away the Yemen Proxy (Was nearly no fighting maybe they just bought them) they now seem to be Moving biggly into Port Sudan on side of the Goverment there and Somalia on the Goverment side there.

Seems like both AMD and Nvidia are spending their time at the Consumer Electronics Show talking about datacenters and AI

YT comment:

I feel like a cow watching a keynote about streamlining slaughterhouses

if i dont steal it, someone else will Trump says US needs to ‘own’ Greenland to prevent Russia and China from taking it

fascinating move, considering trump works for Russia, but im sure putins masterplan accounts for this (/s)

Iranian ISPs are still disconnected from www: https://radar.cloudflare.com/ir?dateRange=7d

My earlier post on the libre internet in Iran became outdated and has stayed outdated pretty much as soon as I gave it.

It’s been no-contact. Whatever architecture it had, it clearly wasn’t good enough not to get shut down alongside everything else in short order.

At some points in the 12 day war, it was possible to make contact by VPNing into Iran via some most-likely government backed service. This is a full cut-off, not a geographic IP filter. Not unlike the Mahsa Amini protests.

Some western figures claim to be in touch via starlink.

My belief is that those claims are true and that those are direct connections, and that they aren’t meshing - or equivalent (meshing rendered irrelevant by jamming).

But a highly motivated state could hypothetically track those down.

Videos that are coming out show that protests start up every night.

• Some mosque minarets burned.
• Molotoved officer.
• Some protesters killed. Etc.

From what I can see, pro-gov protest during the day from state-media, anti-gov during the night.

Anti-gov is a generation younger.

I think what defines this round of protests is people burning down buildings.