Unnamed Israeli officials would say this no matter what. Seeding this kind of message supports the political economy of Zionism in the US system.

The difference will be that this payment is based and is part of a good deal, not woke and part of a bad deal

Yes, and they still are

Bloomberg on “why aren’t oil prices higher”

https://archive.is/3gQMD

Big ones are reduced imports for China, some oil leaving the gulf without passage of the strait, increased production from other areas, and lower demand in general over the spring and summer. Article is worth reading.

yeah I was more excited by this before I realized that this would just empower von der leyen more and not someone less rabid. kallas is in an awkward spot of sharing the same imperialist/ethnic supremacist principles as other more staid EU politicians, but with the disadvantage of constantly being visibly stupid and incompetent

Pre war flow rate was around 20 mb/d. Take a percentage (3.3 / 20 ) * 100% = 16.5 % of the original flow rate. Remember this is the generous scenario, there is still a daily 16.7 mb deficit.

in addition to what @s0ykaf@hexbear.net noted, there has also been changes in export methods - pipelines, rails, trucks out of the region. I don’t know what the value is here actually but I’ve seen figures like 2-5 mbpd. I have no specific links to back that up, this is just my memory vibes based analysis.

Policy tensor on a model of Chinese vs America in the west Pacific, informed by experience in the gulf and eastern Europe.

https://open.substack.com/pub/policytensor/p/an-equilibrium-model-of-counter-base

Tldr is that American bases in West asia would get fucking washed in a week of real combat with China.

Given these observations and our results, deterrence in Asia is no longer a feasible foreign policy objective for the United States.

This person is a pretty good follow on twitter too

How did this come back? Spread through natural vectors or did it come with imported animals?

similar to others, I’m not familiar with his whole ass. could you expand or provide links?

The latest chapo is an interview with Ryan grim and Jeremy scahill and is worth listening to

https://pca.st/episode/0b9ea40b-b865-4872-9568-088629452767

tbh i think we are more in ‘at a medium pace’ territory here

That likely involves a Chinese embargo of Israel or at least severe economic sanctions, plus making some tough threats and ultimatums to some of Israel’s regional and weaker global allies. Its been my opinion for a while that China could end this entire conflict in a few months by using their economic leverage, but it’s strategy the country seems to want to avoid at all costs to maintain their current foreign policy strategies.

Agreed that’s possible and could even work if it was globally coordinated, but 0% chance they’ll do this. China doesn’t seem a big fan of unilateral sanctions.

agreed, I think it’s probably a positive for Iran itself, but lebanese/palestinians are really taking it on the chin in the meantime.

the negotiations do seem like a waste of time, but the alternative of resuming hot war isn’t great either. this grey area middle ground mutual blockade is hurting the US, but the israelis are benefiting as well, since they are currently able to prosecute their war against lebanon and ethnic cleansing/genocide in gaza/west bank without being interrupted by iranian missiles. Iran said that they’re done negotiating until israel knocks it off, but I question whether not being willing to negotiate is sufficient to get the americans to reign the israelis in.

to expand on this, I’m aware of ansarallah, but their attacks against israel previously were not sufficient to bring israel to heel. the US is more extended now than they were before which is to their advantage, but unless they have some real new tactics I question whether their activation is enough pressure. hopefully hot war doesn’t fully heat up again, there is a real risk of world famine should the gulf really get blown apart.

FT and adrian zenz at it again with the uyghurs

https://archive.is/Z2er2

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this, but let’s look at the opening graphs.

In August 2024, the parents of Ekpar Asat made a long journey to a prison in the Chinese region of Xinjiang. Asat, who belongs to the Uyghur ethnic group, was detained by authorities in April 2016 on charges of “inciting ethnic hatred”. The founder of a popular Uyghur-language website, he had recently returned from attending a prestigious leadership programme in the US.

I immediately thought of school of the americas, so let’s dig and see if we can learn more. Here, some harvard rag notes “She is referring to her brother, Ekpar Asat, a Uyghur entrepreneur and philanthropist who after participating in the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program was detained by the Chinese government, then sentenced to 15 years in prison for “inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination,” according to Amnesty International.”

So what’s the IVLP about? Here’s what the state department says:

As the foundational professional exchange program of the U.S. government, the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) advances U.S. national security priorities and builds long-term relationships between Americans and international leaders in government, business, academia, and other fields through short-term professional exchanges that strengthen American communities.

I’ve recalibrated this thing to detect intelligence assets and it’s going crazy

I’m not going to go point by point, but continue on if you’d like to read about bad stats and orientalism. it would be nice if at some point these articles talked about what was happening in the next country over in afghanistan instead of pretending history started in 2017.

Link?

This should have some kind of CW

What is Indonesia doing that their inflation rate is so different than other countries in the region?

Cw: institutional transphobia from terf Island