The announcement of what could be Julian Assange’s final hearings – on 20 and 21 February before the British High Court – has sparked a flurry of speculation about what could be the final fate of the now 52-year-old Australian journalist and publisher, who has been imprisoned in London for four years while awaiting extradition to the United States where 175 years of supermax almost certainly await him.
But how is it possible that Assange can be jailed for 175 years, just for doing what any responsible journalist and editor should always do – that is, disclose war crimes and other wrongdoings he or she learns about by way of spontaneous witnesses? Especially since the US Supreme Court ruled in 1971 that it is permissible to reveal state secrets if it is in the public interest to do so?
I'm honestly interested to see how this goes. Usually when someone is elected who claims to be "libertarian" they don't actually adhere to the philosophy or just pay lip service. I lean socialist myself, but one size never fits all and Argentina is in bad enough shape that maybe this will help.
It looks like he’s trying to heal a patient with bloodletting. I think it might help to revive the economy, but also may be a disaster. Also I think that the social guarantees should at least be in force after things get better, if not the whole time. Trying to work things out for the country by putting the citizens in even worse position does not seem like a humane thing to do even if it works :(
Same here. Milei as an experiment could go either way, but staying the course would have led to certain disaster… and to be frank, the country as a whole doesn’t have a lot to lose at this point anyway.
Could go either way fucking lol, the man is an insane cunt - what fucking possible way could it go except to shit? He might become a normal dude after a stroke? What the fuck
I think that’s a bit oversimplified. Milei’s no doubt a knob and there’s a good chance he’ll screw up, but the alternative would have been the former minister of economy doing four years of the same, which would have been a 100% chance of screwing up. So before you make any more oversimplified statements, consider the alternative to Milei.
Milei has inherited a country on the brink of economic collapse and hyperinflation, caused by a government that has financed its overspending by just printing more money for decades, and borrowing whatever foreign currency it could. This is obviously not sustainable.
He wants to link the peso to the dollar (so the government can’t print more money at will anymore - not to mention the fact that many transactions are already half-legally done in dollars anyway) and do away with some of the many regulations that the Peronists have been promising for decades will help the economy, but which most experts agree have unsurprisingly crippled it further, and in many cases facilitated corruption.
His opponent’s political program can be summed up as “introduce more subsidies”.
Which one makes more sense to you?
It probably depends on what you want to achieve. At the moment it’s probably to avoid hyperinflation, another national bankruptcy and poverty levels climbing to new all-time highs. Massa (the other guy) is known for trying to counter the effects of the current massive inflation by printing more money for government subsidies (let that sink in for a moment), so one could argue that whatever Milei actually does, it can’t be worse than that.
His (to put it mildly) over-the-top rhetoric, homophobia/misogyny and the suggestions to sell your organs to make ends meet etc. are different beasts altogether, but I can’t blame the voters for ranking having food on the table higher than strengthening LGBTQ+ rights. I’m grateful I don’t have to make that choice in my own country.
You are talking about a guy who takes economic advice from a “psychic medium” who he believes is in turn talking psychically to his dogs, who he believes are clones of resurrected jesus-dog.
Just based on the article, these “reforms” are clearly aimed at harming the working class. I’ll give you one guess as to which other class of people will benefit from them.
That’s very dismissive of the failures the former ruling party had. It’s hard to drum up votes for the guy considered responsible for tanking your county’s economy and spiking the poverty rate.
Like I agree, him winning is unfortunate and short sighted, but I think blaming the victims isn’t going to do anything other than help asshats like him win.
I’m not attempting to victim-blame; nobody is completely immune to propaganda and it’s not the fault of the working class that we’re bombarded by it constantly. Often people have no clue they’re being lied to all their lives. When they make decisions based on faulty information that’s shoved at them for decades by the rich and powerful, the working people are not to blame; the people who make the propaganda are.
If they dump their currency and use USD, then as long as there arnough dollars around it solves inflation right? (Their economy is a blip to the Goliath that is USD)
But if that’s the case, then their currency is useless as everyone knows if will have zero value at all in a few months/years.
It does mean they can’t print money to get out of trouble though… Not that that was going well for them before.
Didn’t he win the vote? Trump lost the vote. He won the election because the American system is designed to sometimes hand victory to the loser - Trump was the 5th or 6th example to date.
He was voted on by 14.5 million votes, which was 56% of the votes, but it is also out of a population of 45 million, and he only got 30% in the first round of votes. They have a completely different voting system to the US, so they had a second round of runoffs.
The point is, no most people in Argentina did not vote for him, but many did not vote at all.
I’m sad for the common folk who will be hurt here, even the ones that voted for him because they desperately needed relief. I fear they’ve jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
That’s exactly what they did, and we all knew this was going to happen. Like I said before, if you don’t manage to cut your toenails with a fryig pan a gun is not going te be much help either, dumb fucking cunts
Yearly inflation for December 2023 has been 160% (stuff that used to cost 100, now costs 260)
A 50% devaluation, is the same as a 100% inflation: stuff that used to cost 100, now costs 200.
Milei has promised a reduction in inflation for the next year, from the 160% to just 60% (stuff that used to cost 100, plus through the 50% devaluation now costs 200, will end up costing just another 60% more, or 320“160”).
Meaning: instead of having to anounce a 220% inflation for 2024, he’s split it into “50% devaluation, plus 60% inflation”.
…see? He promised to reduce inflation, and he did! 🎉🤡 /s
The funny thing about all this, is that people keep acting like Putin is some rational actor who can be bargained with.
But he’s not, listen to his speeches, listen to what he says he believes and wants. Some of it may be propaganda for internal consumption, but a lot of it seems consistent with his actions.
He sees the existence of an independent Ukraine as an existential threat, he ether wants it gone or under a puppet regime that he has throughly locked down. He doesn’t believe that Europe and the United States want peace, he is convinced that there is a shadowy deep state in Europe and the US that holds a consistent foreign policy across multiple administrations across multiple countries, and he see that foreign policy being to subjugate or destroy Russia.
The man has surrounded him self with conspiracy theorists, from disciples of Lyndon LaRouche to advocates of Eurasianism. He is detached from reality, swirling about a toilet bowl of yes men. He is not someone who can be compromised with or offered off ramps, he’s been repeatedly given off ramps and rejected them every time, thinking them to be traps.
The only end of this conflict is when internal power structures in Russia shift away from conspiracy theorists, or Russia’s ability to commit aggressive action is less than the defensive capabilities of its neighbors.
Is this before or after the Hamas war crimes tribunal?
They can do that before or after, but I hope they do both soon. There is no difference between Hamas and Israel’s right-wing government led by Netanyahu.
Because it was Israel’s fault they were attacked on all sides in 1948. I guess this at that point one day old nation shouldn’t have worn such a short, Jewish skirt.
They were attacked because they stole like half of Palestinians land. Palestinians didn’t even get to participate in the UN vote.
Two countries that were recently partitioned by the UN and suffered massive violence as a result (India/Pakistan) both voted against annexing half of Palestine to create Israel.
Yes, the Nakba was Israel’s fault. And they still need to return the land that they stole
Why do I suspect that even if we said, “after”, you would still turn around and object to these Israeli assholes being held accountable if tribunals came to pass?
No, war crime trials are for their other abuses, like killing a record number of journalists, aid workers, doctors, and of course women and children. War crime trials are for cutting off food and water to civilians, and bombing civilian infrastructure. War crime trials are for funneling civilians into “safe zones”, and then bombing them.
But you know that. You just don’t care, as long as the monsters you support win instead of the monsters you don’t support.
I don’t think you are aware of just how small this war is in terms of death toll compared to other wars that are currently going on. There is however a disproportionate number of articles (and thus also journalists) covering it:
This doesn’t meant that one should discard the suffering of the civilians caught in the crossfire. It’s horrible and I weep for every innocent who has to suffer because of the decision a small number of terrorists made - but it’s one thing to acknowledge that they died in this conflict and demand both parties to protect civilians and another entirely to claim that Israel is responsible for a record number of war crimes. Not every dead civilian is a war crime. Neither is not supplying your enemy with resources nor is bombing civilian infrastructure that is being used for military purposes. These safe zones were also established to protect civilians from the bulk of the ground fighting. At no point did Israel make the unrealistic promise that they would be safe from bombs. Given that Hamas operates from there and uses these places to stage massed unguided rocket attacks against civilians in Israel, this would be entirely unrealistic. Nobody in their right mind would deny Israel the right to strike these targets. You would do the same if you were in their place.
You are either willfully ignorant about how wrong what you’re saying is, or you are truly a lost cause.
I don’t think you are aware of just how small this war is in terms of death toll compared to other wars that are currently going on.
And I don’t think you realize just how many insane ratios this war is producing. For being so small, it is resulting in more aid worker, doctor, and journalist deaths than other, much larger wars. It has resulted in level of destruction (e.g. 60% of homes damaged) that hasn’t existed since WW2. The sheer percentages of children being killed versus adults (nevermind combatants), is just staggering.
If your only defense is to say, “but who cares about ratios and percentages?”, then you’re just arguing that it’s okay to genocide small groups.
But I’m suuuuuure you’re just weeping non-stop for them, right?
Neither is not supplying your enemy with resources
They are denying civilians water and food, and Israel is not the ones supplying those resources anyways, other countries are, and Israel is blocking them.
nor is bombing civilian infrastructure that is being used for military purposes
Which the water infra and power plants were not, but they were bombed anyways (and to be clear, Israel has never claimed that they were used to launch attacks, before you try to pull that out of your bum).
At no point did Israel make the unrealistic promise that they would be safe from bombs.
Ah yes, unrealistic to not bomb civilians. Of course. So smart. Why even have stipulations about war crimes, since apparently no one in a warzone can expect not to be killed indiscriminately anyways? Checkmate, human rights!
Given that Hamas operates from there
Hamas doesn’t “operate” from the 60% of residential buildings that have been damaged in Gaza, any more than the IDF could be said to “operate” from Israeli neighborhoods. Israel has shown no evidence (and in fact has been shown to have been dead wrong with their claims, such as at al-Shifa) that they are using the refugee camps and homes and businesses that Israel bombed to launch rockets (if they were all actually rocket launch sites, where were all the people actually living?). Simply having your soldiers live somewhere doesn’t make it a valid target, otherwise the rocket attacks into Israel are all justified too.
There’s a reason that Israel is rapidly losing support on the world stage, and why it’s going to find itself a pariah state before too long.
You would do the same if you were in their place.
When you wake up and find that most of the world is rejecting your country’s claims of conducting a war legitimately, perhaps you should question why, rather than rushing to spew out half-baked justifications and appeals to empathize with an abused group becoming the abusers.
It has resulted in level of destruction (e.g. 60% of homes damaged) that hasn’t existed since WW2.
You need to ignore lots of wars to come to this conclusion. Korea would be one immediately after WW2 that makes this one look like child’s play. More recently, the wars in Chechnya, the Syrian civil war, the Sudanese civil war, the civil war in Myanmar, etc. pp. are all vastly more destructive. There is a single death camp in Syria where Assad had up to 13,000 people murdered.
The sheer percentages of children being killed versus adults (nevermind combatants), is just staggering.
Could this be, because Hamas produces fake numbers to weaponize outrage against Israel? Read this:
Israel is not the ones supplying those resources anyways, other countries are, and Israel is blocking them.
Nonsense. Israel was supplying a significant portion of the strip’s power and electricity, as well as bringing in regular supplies of fuel and food. They stopped this on October 7. Israel has since continued this, even though they are not obliged, and also permitted foreign aid through the border crossing with Egypt. Meanwhile, Hamas have openly stolen a significant portion of these supplies, which is the actual reason why Israel stopped them in the first place. Hamas are the ones stealing from civilians and causing their suffering.
water infra and power plants
There’s only one power plant in Gaza, but you seem to have adopted the Hamas method of just making things up for outrage. I guess it’s rubbing off on you. As for the water infrastructure, do I need to remind you that Hamas is using water pipes to create unguided rockets to fire at Israeli population centers? That’s the actual indiscriminate bombing that few people are willing to talk about.
Why even have stipulations about war crimes, since apparently no one in a warzone can expect not to be killed indiscriminately anyways?
These rules are meant to not encourage the use of human shields, because this turns every group of civilians into a potential target. This isn’t difficult to understand - or at least it shouldn’t be. Many of the regulations of the Geneva Conventions are the least terrible solutions to awful questions. That’s sadly how the world works.
Hamas doesn’t “operate” from the 60% of residential buildings that have been damaged in Gaza
In a single so-called refugee camp in Northern Gaza (it’s a normal suburb with houses - it merely inherited the status due to unique UN rules that solely exist for Palestinians and no other people), almost half of all buildings were rigged with explosives. I’m sure whenever Hamas blows one of these up, it gets added to the amount blamed on Israel, just like when one of the 20% of rockets fired from Gaza falls on Gaza instead of hitting a random target in Israel.
Israel has shown no evidence
Here’s a video that shows rockets being launched right from the middle of a refugee camp:
That’s just one of countless pieces of evidence that you choose to ignore in favor of that one-sided victim narrative of yours.
and in fact has been shown to have been dead wrong with their claims, such as at al-Shifa
You mean where they found weapons and a tunnel with an armored door with a firing port? That one? Or the al-Shifa hospital where a surveillance camera recording shows terrorists bringing in a hostage? Or was that a different al-Shifa?
Simply having your soldiers live somewhere doesn’t make it a valid target, otherwise the rocket attacks into Israel are all justified too.
I can tell you are not even trying to argue in good faith.
your country’s claims
I’m not Israeli.
half-baked justifications
At least I’m not ignoring evidence that is right in the open.
Let me ask you this: How should Israel have reacted to the terror attack on October 7? What would, in your eyes, an appropriate, justified response look like? Please be honest.
You mean where they found weapons and a tunnel with an armored door with a firing port?
Yes, that one. The one where all that was behind that door was a room with 2 cots and a table, where Israel had claimed (complete with a fancy 3D animation) that there was an entire multi-level command center with tens of rooms, housing potentially hundreds of Hamas fighters. That one, that didn’t exist.
Or the al-Shifa hospital where a surveillance camera recording shows terrorists bringing in a hostage?
This is always such a weird argument. Yeah, of course Hamas brought the hostage there for treatment. They were trying to keep them alive. They’re also the government in Gaza, so it would be no different than Israeli military bringing one of their hostages to an Israeli hospital. Are you under the impression that hospitals that treat war wounded are military targets?
Let me ask you this: How should Israel have reacted to the terror attack on October 7? What would, in your eyes, an appropriate, justified response look like? Please be honest.
Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Then, I’d say they should have conducted a ground invasion backed with actually targeted strikes on Hamas targets using precision weapons that the US is so enamored with.
and also permitted foreign aid through the border crossing with Egypt
Permitted a pittance, after blocking all of it initially.
I’m not Israeli.
That just makes your caping for their genocide and ethnic cleansing even more ridiculous.
The IDF spends a lot of time trying to jam Tiktok because unlike an American-run company it’s not so easy to pull down everything supportive of Palestinian rights. I’ve seen more first-hand footage from the people being ethnically cleansed on Tiktok than anywhere else. Tiktok had live updates of the infants suffocating to death after they cut the power from Al-Shifa hospital and their generators ran out, and it was Palestinians themselves reporting on the situation moment by moment. That would not be allowed on Youtube, Facebook, Reddit, or Instagram.
I think it’s moreso that TikTok’s algorithms, whatever that black box may contain, are far better for discoverability than those of all the other platforms.
It’s guided by what each individual viewer wants to see (or hates to see, if they can’t resist interacting with videos they hate), so small media bubbles are created for better or worse, but Tiktok will hand on-the-ground news reported by Palestinians to people who want to see it without those viewers having to look for it or know it’s there to be looked for.
By contrast, if you go to youtube, you might see whatever shows up in the general “popular” tab, or you might enter a search for Palestinian news (which requires you to be actively looking for it in the first place vs just there and able to be shown it) but you’re likely to get mainly clips from major US news channels, with their framing of the situation, and maybe some Israeli ones. Not the heaps of videos by random individuals that you’ll find on TikTok. Even if that type of video is uploaded, youtube won’t recommend it if it’s from a new channel and doesn’t already clock a bazillion views. But TikTok can make a little video from a random person go from zero to everywhere very quickly.
TikTok in general is just better for finding “man on the street”/“what is it like to be there right now” reports from affected individuals. As well as for finding other own-voices type videos by individuals who aren’t media stars or news reporters or the hosts of big youtube channels, but who are the ones most directly in a situation.
Of course there is bias or outright misinformation on the platform too. It is best approached with caution and media literacy, but one need only look at U.S. media’s coverage of the current situation to see that is the case for mainstream news organizations too.
TikTok is a master example of enshittification, which consists in:
Offer users a good experience to hook them up
Introduce advertisements to hook up advertisers
Have hooked up advertisers bid against each other for a place in a users feed
Increase user engagement by showing them both what they like and the opposite
Tease users with a chance to earn money (taking just a 50% cut), so they get to compete against the advertisers, and each other, for a place in other users feeds
The discoverability on TikTok is abysmally bad, all you will ever find is either paid content, or content made by users trying to outdo each other in a race to attract/outrage (aka: increase your engagement).
Only thing you can easily discover on TikTok, is the most polarizing content possible, there is about exactly zero chance to get a realistic view into anything through TikTok; not even by averaging the extremes, which are custom tailored to your personal love/hate triggers.
Interesting how the Saudi export of their religion is a problem but you’ve got people in the streets cheering for Hamas who is just as brutal if not worse in their upholding of their interpretation of Islamic laws. One’s certainly more subtle than attacking and killing a bunch of civilians but both are troublesome for Western democractic ideals.
Iran and Qatari investments are paying off . Better than the investment in a golf league… y’know, if you don’t value human life that is.
Extreme wealth absolutely is correlated with psychopaths. Nobody becomes ultrawealthy while keeping a conscience; to get that rich you have to step on other people. Unfortunately this phenomenon is not unique at all to the Saudi regime and I don’t think their cruelty or violence are either; the ruling capitalists all across the world make decisions daily with the same outcomes.
Golf sucks. Personally I think it should die out. What a waste, all across the world, of good land and water.
David Morales, a former Special Forces soldier in the Spanish military who owned a Spanish surveillance firm that was contracted to provide security for the Ecuadorian Embassy in London
To be clear: when they say Morales, they’re talking about the Spanish for-profit surveillance guy, not to be confused with the president of Bolivia Evo Morales.
For a second I thought this was a back stab by Latin America, whew. Nope, just the US doing its illicit shenanigans.
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