International Politics Thread - Disease and Disaster

[Brehvolution]

Moroccan women

[Mupepe]

What really makes it amazing is that Wilders tweeted himself, "these judges think Morocco the country is a race! Insane!"

And he has a shot at becoming our new Prime Minister.

Trump, huh?  Well, alright.

Moroccan women

Elektrikluv?

[Brehvolution]

Moroccan women

Elektrikluv?

[Rufus]

I guess I should bookmark my favorite gifs or something. I don't know what's the most useful way of this shit doing.

And I thought I was good at computers.

Rehost them all in an imgur album?

[bluemax]

There was a protest dog at the South Korea protests yesterday.

Also the South Korean ex president is batshit.

[VomKriege]

Daech reinvested Palmyre in Syria and one or two explosions occured in Istanbul 

[chronovore]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/07/world/asia/rodrigo-duterte-philippines-drugs-killings.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Jesus Christ.

I am really enjoying the presentation / format of that story. Slick as hell.

The content is terrifying. That's the kind of insanity I fear the USA will fall under during Trump's term.

TRUMP FUN FACT: His first term has already had a movie deal put in place for Purge 4.

[VomKriege]

Meanwhile, in Israël...

Bitan was asked for his opinion on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's use of social media, including his Election Day video in which he called on his supporters to vote, warning that the "the Arabs are going to the polls in droves." Bitan, who is considered close to Netanyahu, said: "I'd rather the Arabs won't go to the polls in droves, and won't come to the polls at all."

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.758120

In Nigeria, Boko Haram targets schools and teachers, sometimes using former students to carry the attacks.

http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-nigeria-boko-haram-teachers-20161020-story.html

[Syph]

context

"Ninety-five percent of them vote for the Joint List that doesn't represent Israeli Arabs, but Palestinian interests," Knesset member David Bitan told the audience at a public event in Mevaseret Zion, near Jerusalem, referring to Israel's predominantly Arab party.

[VomKriege]

...says the dude that prefers Israeli-Arabs not to vote.
And even if you take it at face value... Well, yeah so what ? Voters are entitled to their choices.

[Syph]

im not disagreeing with you i was just providing some modicum of context

[VomKriege]

Tales from the French Socialist Primary [part (?)]

"It's not the socialist primary, it's the citizen primary of the beautiful popular alliance ( )"
The "beautiful popular alliance" gave a nice illustration of just how shambolic the PS is by trying yet once again -unsuccessfully- to ask Mr Macron (independent center left candidate) and Mr Mélenchon (radical left) to participate in while refusing simultaneously to admit a few small candidates in (notably Pierre Larrouturou, french economist & politician) for being "interested too late in the process".

Dropped out : Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, french senator, who doesn't want to divide further the votes of the "radicals" for which there's already a competition between Mr Hamon and Mr Montebourg.

May be running : Sylvia Pinel for the Left Radical Party (PRG for the french short form). Radicals are not "radicals" as in "far left" but a small party carrying the name (with another, center right, Radical Party) of a formerly very popular form of Third Republic leftism. The PRG had been for a long time a subservient ally of the Socialist Party but this year they decided to nominate Miss Pinel as their candidate for the Presidency outside of the primary... but are now considering fielding her in the primary. Go figure. Probably got a stern lecture to know their place and play the game by the rules...

Going in : Vincent Peillon, former Minister of Education (2012-2014). Not too sure where he falls on the spectrum, to be honest (to the left of Valls, no doubt). That would be the fourth minister (!) of one of Hollande's cabinet to run in this primary and probably one (if not two) too many, gives the impression that Socialist "elephants" (as the apparatchiks are often called here) are all coming out of the woodwork.

Current expected count : 10-11 candidates.

Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls has a tough road ahead of him because he must now unite the party if he wants to win the primary, which is really not his strong point as up until now he was the "iconoclast social-liberal", one that once famously said there were "irreconcilable positions" within the French Left. Unfairly or not, he will have to assume the heritage of the governement he was a part of and there's already an independent candidate chasing his core electorate.

[VomKriege]

Who Killed Alexander Perepilichny?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/the-poison-flower/508736/

Another chilling tale of a Russian who may have been poisoned for whistleblowing a massive fraud case he was part of to the aggrieved party. With yet again no definitive evidence of the Kremlin involvement.
Article does a good job at laying its investigation and giving appropriate space to the history of exotic poison in general and its use by Russian spooks in particular.

[benjipwns]

I forget who wrote it, but it was years ago during the Ukranian stuff, that someone else suggested that the Russians are "deliberately bad" at their poisoning because it's supposed to send a message, not be a secret.

Also the improbable "suicides" where guys like put their toes in the triggers of guns and stuff while hanging themselves.

[VomKriege]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/12/colombia-brutal-and-death-of-girl-shocks-country-marred-by

Colombia shaken by the rape and murder of a young girl.

[VomKriege]

Venezuela is retiring the 100 bolivar bill in a surprise and hasty announcement to replace it with much higher denominations :

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN14127P?il=0

[Syph]

Venezuela is retiring the 100 bolivar bill in a surprise and hasty announcement to replace it with much higher denominations :

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN14127P?il=0

lol that is not the solution but alllright

[VomKriege]

Nothing new, unfortunately, but what is happening in the Philippines is just so terrible...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/14/philippines-president-rodrigo-duterte-personally-killed-criminals

“In Davao I used to do it personally. Just to show to the guys [police officers] that if I can do it, why can’t you” (...) The former mayor was nicknamed “Duterte Harry”

[Samson Manhug]

Daech reinvested Palmyre in Syria and one or two explosions occured in Istanbul 

Hadn't seen that one before. I love your French perspective, VK.

Check out the Russian base they took in Palmyra:

https://twitter.com/jacm212/status/808676620810723328

Remember when Russian said they were deploying to Syria to fight IS then they started obliterating Homs and then Aleppo while saying with a straight face they supported the Free Syrian army?

https://twitter.com/rt_com/status/676591063000219650

[VomKriege]

We are having the same ridiculous debates in France about how to label religious/political groups using violence and the Islamic State. The current French government has decided across the board to use Daech, apparently to deny them the moniker of "state". A weird argument since it is really just a romanized version of the arab version of the ISIL acronym which has the word "state" in it but yeah I get the idea at least as far as domestic comsumption go. Really I suspect it just rolls out the tongue better than EIIL (ISIL in english) or EI (IS) and how it is said has more of a sinister ring to it. Sarkozy was recently insisting more of using the french version of "Islamic state", emphasis on "islamic" of course, with pretty much the same arguments you hear used against Barack Obama.

With regards to Russia, as I said before, it's not really surprising they would face most of the same issues as any of the western interventions, if not more for lack of recent experience, because despite having a naval base on-site, they are probably straining their capacities, especially compounded with the forces they must keep at Ukraine's door : several (western) observers are convinced they may be looking for an out in Ukraine and bargaining for the US/UE sanctions being lifted but regardless of the big gains they're maybe due on that front in a few months with Trump (giving UE countries, which are losing a lot more than the US from business opportunities in Russia, an excuse to follow suit), they're probably discovering that a decent exit from intervention in the middle east isn't neat and at their leisure.

[Samson Manhug]

I'm with you on the Da'ash thing not making sense if you are trying to not use an acronym that includes state.

As for Russia, I think your straining assessment is correct. This is unprecedentedly embarrassing for them. Sure, IS took Iraqi bases filled with US equipment, but IS never took an American base. Shows how much military power Russia actually has compared to how much they project.

[VomKriege]

Regarding the loss of Palmyra, the Russian official line is to imply the US-led coalition is at fault here, if not outright orchestrating it :

https://www.rt.com/news/370019-isis-palmyra-new-offensive/

Lavrov said the IS fighters appear to have come to Palmyra from Mosul, where the offensive against them has intensified, and that they have apparently moved through routes "patrolled" by the US-led coalition's aviation, which "makes one think that the whole [situation] has been orchestrated." "I hope I'm wrong," Lavrov added, however.

Former UK ambassador to Syria Peter Ford told RT (...) "I don't think you have to be a genius to work out that there are plans afoot to decamp the ISIS rebels from Mosul into eastern Syria, and this will play into the American narrative that Assad can't control the countryside in Syria and that he's not a good ally in the fight against ISIS"

I'm not gonna pretend to comment on military operations and to have an opinion on whether or not the US coalition could or should have conducted operations there, but it doesn't really make it look much better for them.

[Samson Manhug]

What's with all these former UK ambassadors being idiots? Yes, attacking Mosul is going to send IS into Syria—where, incidentally, the US has been picking off IS leaders one by one (or sometimes in groups like these latest Charlie Hebdo-linked guys) and providing air support for the SDF in their Raqqa offensive. It isn't an American "narrative" that Assad can't control the countryside, it's fact. And apparently neither can Russia.

[VomKriege]

Philippines is now saying they wouldn't object to China militarizing the contested Spratly isles, which they have started to do :

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1450VE

With the demise of TPP, Trump heating up the Taiwan issue (an editorial in state run Global Times suggested China should increase readiness of the plan to invade Formosa) and a legal dispute at the WTO with the USA and the EU, it seems the PRC is starting to push everywhere to gauge President Trump as soon as he will take office.

[VomKriege]

French billionaire Bolloré, the leading actor behind Vivendi, is implicated in yet another business expansion, now in Spain :

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mediapro-m-a-idUSKBN1451L9?il=0

You probably heard of the long term takeover Vivendi is performing on Ubisoft but they also recently started hostile moves towards Mediaset (Berlusconi media group) and became the owner of French channel Canal+ (on subscription, very big actor in French cinema and European sport broadcast, hit hard by on demand video and Qatar funded BeIn Sport) where the brutal management led the news redaction to open conflict (one third of the employees will probably leave of their own accord for ethics concerns).

Vivendi is an extension of a former water utility company (though that whole branch was severed back into Veolia) which went all in on media & entertainment under the egomaniac guise of former CEO Jean-Marie Messier (nicknamed "Maitre du Monde" - "Master of the World") until it bled money by the billions. It got much better since then and Bolloré got in in 2015.

Vincent Bolloré himself is part of a giant laundry list of ventures (movie studios, industry, utilities) and his logistics company is very well implemented in Africa harbors.

[VomKriege]

Things are not going too well for the Italian populist Movement 5 Stars in their showcase mayor's office in Rome.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/16/five-star-movement-blow-aide-rome-mayor-virginia-raggi-arrested

Rome, allegedly, has the reputation of being run by a terrible administration for a long time.
It probably won't hurt M5S overall chances of being a major wrench in upcoming national elections.

[VomKriege]

Russia and her muslim radicalization problem

http://warontherocks.com/2016/12/the-coming-of-the-russian-jihad-part-ii/

[Madrun Badrun]

Russia has and always will have a radical Muslim problem due to Chechnya

[VomKriege]

Russian ambassador to Turkey gunned down in an art gallery by a Turkish police officer shouting something about avenging Aleppo. Killer's dead too.
Caught on live TV and by an AP reporter...

https://twitter.com/MicahGrimes/status/810897172392722432

[Rufus]

Wow

[Samson Manhug]

(Murder video)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/810900987393310720

[close]

https://twitter.com/AmarAmarasingam/status/810900997572796416

[Madrun Badrun]

Looking for to the president elects tweet on the matter. 

[Rufus]

Someone repeated the Nice attack in Berlin. Already claimed by IS as one of theirs. 9 dead, 50 injured, so thankfully not as devastating.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38373867

edit: One suspect was apprehended (unclear wether he was the driver), the other was found dead in the cabin.

[Great Rumbler]

Looking for to the president elects tweet on the matter. 

He's still waiting to receive his talking points from the Kremlin.

[Klelk]

It's no wonder the far right is rising in Europe with all these Islamic ass attacks. What's even worse than this attack, is that Islamaphobes expected it to happen.

[Cerveza mas fina]

It's no wonder the far right is rising in Europe with all these Islamic ass attacks. What's even worse than this attack, is that Islamaphobes expected it to happen.

how is that worse then the attack

[Samson Manhug]

I'm not an Islamophobe and I expect another attack from jihadists. Lots more, really.

[Syph]

It's no wonder the far right is rising in Europe with all these Islamic ass attacks. What's even worse than this attack, is that Islamaphobes expected it to happen.

wonder why

[recursivelyenumerable]

Yeah, tbh I'm surprised there hasn't been another 9/11 or worse scale attack yet. thanks Obama?? (Obama+Bush??!?)

[Klelk]

I think now is the time to come together and really show our diversity and let in more refugees maybe even double the amount. We here in Europe should take triple even quadruple the amount to show how diverse we are, the risk is unimportant.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Nope

[VomKriege]

Have I missed something ? Are refugees linked to the attack yet ?
And actually a lot of countries haven't yet taken their burden of Syria refugees, I read recently that Italy and Greece (not to mention Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey) still bore huge numbers despite a lot of those refugees supposed to be transfered elsewhere by now. I'd also say it's arguable that Europe not taking his share might end up more costly politically, if it's at the expense of breaking down further the EU near-abroad.

EDIT :

Bank successfully test blockchain technology :
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN14A0X9?il=0

Bitcoin mechanics vindicated, Bitcoin currency (or commodity ? Who the fuck knows at this point) stay losing.

[Rufus]

I think people would have bridged that gap regardless to promote their politics, but the initial suspect (who has since been released) is a refugee, hence the immediate connection. One particularly tasteless cunt (from my state no less) threw in "these are Merkel's dead" mere hours after the attack.

[Syph]

[VomKriege]

I spoke earlier of the election in Gabon. Despite the massive suspicions of vote rigging, the opposition candidate Jean Ping never conceded and is still trying to overturn the result. A recent report, disclosed in Gabon's capital Libreville by the European Union pointed out the suspicious numbers in the Haut-Ogooué district (from which the ruling Bongo family is from) where turnout was over 99% and Ali Bongo took 95% of the ballots. Ping jumped on the opportunity to ask to be recognized president by the EU and a variety of other international associations (the African Union, etc...), without traction. In fact the EU failed to convince the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States to rally to a common statement at the recent joint assembly.

The Gabonese government is trying to project a sense of normalcy and legitimity but things seems to be tense internally : One of Jean Ping's lawyer want missing for a couple of days and recently revealed he sought asylum at an embassy to espace masked men who searched his empty home.

Meawhile in the nearby Democratic Republic of Congo (or "Congo-Kinshasa"), President Joseph Kabila's tenure is officially over... but he claims elections cannot be organized before January 2018 at the earliest and decided to stay in power. The opposition is not taking it well and already a few dozens people probably have been killed during clashes with the police.

Joseph Kabila took office when his father was killed. Bloomberg just had an exhaustive examination of the business holdings of the Kabila family.

EDIT :

French foreign minister says conditions favorable to supply weapons to Lebanese army
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN14B11R?il=0

To contrast with

Hezbollah using U.S. weaponry in Syria "that they took from the Lebanese armed forces": senior Israeli military officer
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN14A19W

[Human Snorenado]

Russian military plane "disappears" shortly after takeoff

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38430164

Welp.

[VomKriege]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-un-idUSKBN14C1IV?il=0

Bibi maybe cutting some of the UN funding because of the institution's "hostility".


2016 : Year of the obstruction.

[Samson Manhug]

Russian military plane "disappears" shortly after takeoff

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38430164

Welp.

Same Russian military plane that killed the President of Poland. Ironically, Putin told Poland to fuck off two days ago after years of requesting the wreckage and black boxes.

http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/286058,Putin-Smolensk-plane-crash-‘should-not-be-used-for-political-gain’

[Great Rumbler]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-un-idUSKBN14C1IV?il=0

Bibi maybe cutting some of the UN funding because of the institution's "hostility".


2016 : Year of the obstruction.

This is funny, especially since the UN has been trying to pass resolutions against Israel for years now and they've only failed to pass because of US vetoes.

[curly]

http://www.businessinsider.com/israel-suspends-ties-with-12-un-security-council-nations-2016-12

Israel suspending ties with the 12 countries that voted for the UN resolution, including Russia, China, France, Japan, and Great Britain. I assume it's only for show but still seems crazy to antagonize most of the world powers.

[Madrun Badrun]

  Egypt is pretty important as well in that list. 

[VomKriege]

http://www.businessinsider.com/israel-suspends-ties-with-12-un-security-council-nations-2016-12

Israel suspending ties with the 12 countries that voted for the UN resolution, including Russia, China, France, Japan, and Great Britain. I assume it's only for show but still seems crazy to antagonize most of the world powers.

I honestly don't understand what Israël thinks her endgame is in all this. Colonize the lands fast enough to create a Saint-Marin sized Palestine when they'll be forced to ? I get that the situation is very complex, that Israël should be entitled to be recognized by neighbours and that Palestinians will never get the right of return to a lot of places (and will have to cut losses on a number of demands). Fault is not solely theirs. But they're backing themselves in a corner.

[curly]

http://www.businessinsider.com/israel-suspends-ties-with-12-un-security-council-nations-2016-12

Israel suspending ties with the 12 countries that voted for the UN resolution, including Russia, China, France, Japan, and Great Britain. I assume it's only for show but still seems crazy to antagonize most of the world powers.

I honestly don't understand what Israël thinks her endgame is in all this. Colonize the lands fast enough to create a Saint-Marin sized Palestine when they'll be forced to ? I get that the situation is very complex, that Israël should be entitled to be recognized by neighbours and that Palestinians will never get the right of return to a lot of places (and will have to cut losses on a number of demands). Fault is not solely theirs. But they're backing themselves in a corner.

Do we really need to go so "both sides are at fault" in a conflict between a settler-colonial state and those who have been colonized

[Rufus]

In this case, yes.

[VomKriege]

Do we really need to go so "both sides are at fault" in a conflict between a settler-colonial state and those who have been colonized

Actually I was afraid of being misunderstood for the sake of my brevity.
The Israël-Palestine situation itself is indeed assymetrical, with a dominant force occupying a weaker one. As such, Israël is rightly held at an higher responsibility. All the more since it also continues, despite international outcry, to conduct an illegal policy of settlements for which they are to blame.
However while the above is true, some of the Palestinian demands will have to be dropped if a two state solution is to be reached, as far as I understand it.
Moreover there's another level to this and that's the string of neighboring countries refusing to recognize Israël and thus it's right to exist in peace. There, I think the other parties share quite a bit of the blame, and this problem is linked with the peace process.

[curly]

Is the two state solution even a goal worth aspiring for at this point

The only Palestinian state Israel will allow is a fractured Bantustan whose sovereignty will be in name only, in a situation that basically mirrors the present one where the Palestinian Authority plays Israel's security subcontractor.
As for Israel's neighbors, I think most of their rulings classes would be fine with recognizing Israel if they didn't have to worry about their own public's opinion. Countries like Saudi Arabia are already very closely tied to Israel, and are more openly abandoning the pretense of being Palestine's champion.

[Syph]

Hamas

[VomKriege]

Duterte is a fucking loon :

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-duterte-helicopter-idUSKBN14I0DH

"Let's not make any drama, I will personally gun you down if nobody else will do it."

"If you are corrupt, I will fetch you using a helicopter to Manila and I will throw you out. I have done this before, why would I not do it again?"

(...)

It was not immediately clear when or where the helicopter incident Duterte spoke of took place. His spokesman, Ernesto Abella, suggested it may not have actually happened.

"Let's just say, 'urban legend'," Abella told reporters, without elaborating.

[benjipwns]

  at those backwards nations where their Presidents just make up crazy absurd shit and proclaim it with no filter

[Steve Contra]

I'm following a fun thread on facebook where a friend of a friend whom I assumed is Israeli is posting shit like this

Read what I have posted on my wall. O and Kerry have drawn a line of lying, murderous hate that wants me and my family and friends dead. You back them and you want us dead. And if you want us dead you are not my "friend" on Facebook or in real life. There is no "gray area".

and basically calling everyone who has anything but effusive praise for Israel a Nazi or a Kapo. Turns out it's a woman who was born in small town West Virginia and has a government job there.