A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like “in Minecraft”) and comments containing it will be removed.

Image depicts the aftermath of a Yemeni missile impacting King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preamble

It’s been a much slower week than last week, consisting mainly of consolidation and (so far, empty) threats.

In Yemen, Ansarallah continues to battle Saudi-backed mercenary groups. Gains have been relatively slower compared to the lightning offensive earlier that took the western coastline, which makes sense with all the new territory they have to administer and generally sort out, including fortifying towns and cities against potential Saudi assaults from the north. The biggest news so far has been Trump apparently being on the verge of striking Yemen over the weekend due to Saudi insistence, to the extent that embassies across the region issued alerts warning that they might soon be attacked, but then deciding not to when people in his administration told him not to. I haven’t cared for Trump’s theatrics for several months now, so I won’t care to speculate whether this is a bluff or a double bluff and so on; all I will say is that a couple years ago, a significantly stronger US military tried and failed to dislodge Ansarallah’s control of the Red Sea, and that this time, they even seem willing to hit Saudi oil facilities in response.

On that note, diesel continues to break new price records, and gasoline isn’t too far behind it. Outright shortages haven’t yet become systemic, as tempting as it is to look at a couple gas stations running out and drawing trend lines from there, but it’s certainly going to be where we’re headed if there isn’t a diesel export ban eventually, which Russia and others have already implemented. A ban would somewhat alleviate US price hikes, but would cause major instability throughout the rest of the world due to the ubiquity of diesel in transportation infrastructure, and if you’ve created a favourable international order over the past century or so, you really don’t want to blow it up.

Next up: Poland’s been amping up their anti-Russian rhetoric to new heights lately, joining Germany and others in advocating for further aid to Ukraine and the creation of modern national armies in Europe to send into Ukraine to battle Russia directly. This type of thing would have been rather frightening to me back in 2023 and 2024, but at this point, all I can do is shake my head. We all saw how the US military, which is more powerful than yours, has faired against Iran, which is weaker than Russia - and you want to arm yourself with largely American weapon systems, or at least systems heavily inspired by the American MIC? Lol. Lmao, even.

Lastly for today, Trump seems to have taken a victory lap over their more-or-less annexation of Greenland after Denmark permitted it. As I and many others noted back when this was all over the media initially months ago, the US has had a military base there for decades already and has been investing in mining there too for a while, so this is more of a formalization of the de facto status quo. Denmark previously technically had a veto on US military activity there, but now seems to be gone; after all, there is little chance that Denmark would ever have the courage to actually use said veto anyway at this point. So, geopolitically, it’s a fairly minor news item that serves mainly as yet another humiliation for Europe in a long chain that stretches far into the past and continues to stretch into the future. For the Greenlanders themselves, however, this does seem like pretty catastrophic news, with any and all non-US foreign investment (such as by China) likely to be cut.

(and as a postscript here just before I hit post: yes, the Iranian president physically travelling to the US is embarrassing for Iran and very embarrassing for him. at least Araghchi going makes sense given he’s the foreign minister. the silver lining of this debacle might be a further discrediting of the non-hardliner side?)


Last week’s thread 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 the Zionists’ 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.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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

Sources:

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.


  • 挂路灯人@lemmy.ml
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    8 days ago

    China-Africa cooperation in vocational education builds skills, opens opportunities

    The skills that carried African competitors to skills competitions like the World Vocational College Skills Competition are among the everyday subjects in classrooms that China and Africa run together. For some, success in competition has opened the door to employment.

    Young Africans across the continent are gaining practical skills as China-Africa cooperation in vocational education continues to grow. For many, mastering a skill is ultimately about finding a job, or even starting a business. The longer game is not training one class of students, but enabling African schools to train their own.

    Ma is one of 20 Chinese teachers working at six vocational colleges across Ethiopia. “The students really cherish the opportunities to practice on training models, to the extent that some are willing to spend extra time in the laboratory after class,” she said.

    In Cameroon, the classroom has moved onto the construction site.

    In early August, China First Highway Engineering Co., Ltd. teamed up with Cameroon’s Ministry of Higher Education and the National Advanced School of Public Works to run the country’s first certification course for surveyors.

    Cameroon’s Minister of Higher Education Jacques Fame Ndongo said the program turns construction sites into “open-air classrooms” and builds a direct bridge between universities and major projects.

    This cooperation is not just about building roads; it is about training people, and about the future of Cameroon’s workforce, the minister added.

    According to an action plan released at the 2024 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, China will continue vocational education with Africa, build with African countries schools of engineering technology, set up or upgrade 10 Luban Workshops, and offer 60,000 training opportunities aimed chiefly at African women and youth.

    China has established 17 Luban Workshops in 15 African countries and trained tens of thousands of professionals.

    • scrungus [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      8 days ago

      The longer game is not training one class of students, but enabling African schools to train their own.

      This reminds me of the sankara-salute quote

      Those who really want to help us can give us ploughs, tractors, fertilizers, insecticides, watering cans, drills and dams. That is how we would define food aid.

      • Athena5898 [any]@hexbear.net
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        8 days ago

        I think it’s amazing how several people from my generation, once they hit college, went “wait a minute…wouldn’t it make more sense to help Africa’s infrastructure if we really wanted to help?” I had a family member write a small paper that was published somewhere. But you don’t hear about that cause it’s not actually about helping Africa, obviously. It’s the one thing that gives me hope. No matter how hard they try to propagandize us, and brainwash us, there are people who will always arrive to the correct conclusions in spite of it all. There will always be people who will see the atrocities and errors and want to do something about it. At some point, that little spark will hit dry tinder and go off.

        • scrungus [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          8 days ago

          There will always be people who will see the atrocities and errors and want to do something about it. At some point, that little spark will hit dry tinder and go off.

          bloomer Well put

    • duderium [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      8 days ago

      I literally cannot tell the difference between this and King Leopold II committing genocide in the Congo to get rich off of rubber.

    • Cowbee [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      8 days ago

      Fantastic news, love to see the progress made. What an incredible opportunity to work on such a program and dedicate yourself to dismantling centuries of colonialism, enslavement, and neocolonialism, brick by brick. Africa is standing up, nobody can stop it.