Random XIII

[nodandsmile]

• Erdogan says Sweden can join NATO only if they join him in treating every person of Kurdish descent as a terrorist.
• Israeli authorities make it even more difficult for "foreigners" to visit Occupied Territories.
• Peruvian protesters continue to march in support of Castillo, after (US-supported) coup removed him, despite police and other paramilitary forces using lethal, and reportedly militarily illegal (e.g. fragmentation rounds), weaponry.
• Thousands of Israelis march against latest version of Benjamin "Me over Thee" Netanyu's increasingly right-wing, racist, sexist and generally bigoted government.
• Israeli Supreme Court orders Aryeh Deri, Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Health (co-founder of uber-racist Shas party) to step down due to morals and corruption charges.
• US media queries Biden allowing Germany to make it's own decision on providing tanks to Ukraine.
• US media, and warhawks, continue to press for nuclear war, apparently feel that being dead right will be a valid position post first exchange.
• String of Ukrainian officials stood down on corruption grounds. Expect MSM to treat them the same way they criticised Russian generals.
• Davos attendees, continue to shill for benefits of complete destruction of Ukraine, and complete opening to "free" market
• Internally, Ukraine continues to ban/incarcerate/assassinate left-wing and/or critical voices.
• Japan remilitarising. Country well known for it's peaceful stance over the centuries hyping up Chinese threat. Japanese Ambassador interferes in Australian politics, claiming we're not being sufficiently aggressive towards China.
• First few weeks of 2023, COVID deaths in Australia exceed total annual deaths in 2020, and soon 2021. Government continues to do nothing.
• Some Maori cultural experts claim that Bezos naming his stupid-yacht "Koru" indicates Bezos understands and values Maori cultural ideas. For some reason, the phrase "cultural appropriation" has not arisen to criticise one of the world's richest men. In other news, photos of "Koru" continue to demonstrate Bezos has literally zero taste.
• Meanwhile, Amazon, already known as one of the worst employers in the developed world, plans to fire another 18,000. I'm sure they won't ALL be recent union members or sympathisers.
• Major international providers of carbon credits recently discovered to be basically faking some 90% of the damn things.
  - Australian government spends AUS$4B on military in the first three weeks of 2023; continues to have zero money for public health system, social safety net, COVID, indigenous support, education. Purchases include HIMARS (few hundred km range), Blackhawks, and AUS$1B on (maybe) a few thousand "sea mines", for a country with 34,000km of coastline. Maybe they'll be unilaterally dumped, by our masters and at our expense, in the Taiwan Strait, Chiwan Bay or maybe Hangzhou Bay. No problem, just ask Yemen.
• Yemen continues to starve due to US/UK supported Saudi rape of the country, partly due to illegal blockades that don't affect US/UK support and weapon deliveries to Saudi Arabia.
• Pence, leaps onto the "accidentally left classified documents at home" train, prompting the question of how US security experts can be doing such a poor job - we all know elected officials are terrible at protecting such materials - and increasingly arousing the attention of non-US intelligence services.
• Google fires 12,000; stock go up. Brazil promises to help the poor, stock go down.
• Settlers invade Al-Aqsa mosque, again. Fire insurance rates for third most important site in Islam skyrocket.