alanjjohnstone
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76% of South Koreans believe the nation should develop and deploy its own nuclear weapons to serve as a deterrent, with China seen as the biggest threat to peace in the region but North Korea also a constant cause for concern.
https://www.dw.com/en/south-korea-why-support-for-nukes-is-on-the-rise/a-64740433
“South Koreans do not trust the nuclear umbrella provided by the US. How can we trust someone for protection if they treat us as a competitor?” said Hyobin Lee, an adjunct professor of politics at Chungnam National University.
The United States says it is “deeply dismayed” by Israeli settlement expansion plans.
Khalil Jahshan, executive director of the Arab Center Washington DC, a think tank, said, “Israel knows it’s just an expression of dissatisfaction. Whether it’s a ‘regret’ or ‘deep concern’, whatever the diplomatic term du jour is, still the administration will not do anything practical about it to hold Israel responsible for its behaviour.”
The USA also stated a United Nations proposal that would call on Israel to cease settlement activity and to denounce the same settlements is “unhelpful”.
“The contradiction of the Biden administration’s stated position ‘opposing’ Israel’s settlement expansion yet rejecting any attempt to hold them legally accountable is proof of their complicity in the continuation of Israeli occupation and apartheid,” said Tariq Kenney-Shawa, US policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank. “This is because all the US cares about is preserving the status quo of Israeli domination — that is the heart of the issue.”
The USA has warned Palestinians against turning to the International Criminal Court or the International Court of Justice to pursue accountability for Israeli violations.
Israel receives at least $3.8bn of US aid annually.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/17/us-criticism-of-israeli-settlements-is-meaningless-analysts
Price controls in inflation hit Argentina
In the poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, where the inhabitants often lack even the basic means of life such as safe drinking water, Argentina’s persistent inflation problem is wreaking havoc on livelihoods.
Padre “Paco” Oliveira, a Catholic priest who caters to the needs of the poor, thinks the government price curbs do not go far enough. “A fair price is an agreement with companies so that they do not increase the prices of certain products beyond the agreed level. But that is far from enough. People must receive wages that are above inflation,” he told DW.
https://www.dw.com/en/argentinas-rampant-inflation-will-price-caps-work/a-64696859
Lars-Andre Richter is observing the experiment for Germany’s liberal Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Buenos Aires. The price controls are problematic, he says, because of their “market-distorting effect.”
“In Argentina, the government wants to counter inflation. That’s like trying to dam a raging river with a few pebbles,” he told DW. “Officially, the blame for the high inflation rate is being placed on the producers and their allegedly speculative tendencies. That is a clear distortion of the facts.”
Instead, Richter blames government money printing for high inflation, as the central bank is printing pesos “virtually around the clock.Agustin Etchebarne from Libertad y Progreso (Freedom and Progress), a nonprofit public policy research center, is also critical of the government measures. He argues that the price controls cannot work.
“If a price is set below the free market price, you distort the signals and ask producers to produce less and consumers to consume more,” he told DW, adding that this would lead to “shortages and empty supermarket shelves.”
Once prices are freed again, he fears that those which go up the most will, of course, be “the ones that were controlled.” As a result, Etchebarne expects that the fair price strategy will fail, like many other such attempts that have been undertaken “all over the world in the last 4,000 years.”Protesters in Iran marched through the streets of multiple cities in the most widespread demonstrations in weeks on Friday.
There were demonstrations in Iran’s capital, Tehran, as well as in the cities of Arak, Isfahan, Izeh in Khuzestan province and Karaj, the group Human Rights Activists in Iran said.
In Iran’s western Kurdish regions, videos showed burning roadblocks in Sanandaj, which has seen repeated demonstrations.
Since they began, at least 529 people have been killed in demonstrations, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran. More than 19,700 others have been detained by authorities amid a violent crackdown trying to suppress the dissent.
Morton Klein, the national President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) issued a statement concerning the impending “de-Judaization” of the Jewish State. The culprit turns out to be none other than Israel’s notorious and racist “Law of Return,” and its amendment in 1970 that allowed anyone worldwide who has one Jewish grandparent, including the non-Jewish spouse and children and grandchildren of such a person and their spouses, to obtain Israeli citizenship.
As a result of the grandparent clause, over 50% of all immigrants to the Jewish state last year were non-Jews, and 72% of immigrants from FSU countries into the Jewish state today are non-Jews.
American Zionists Accuse Israel of De-Judaizing the Jewish State
Coincidental to BD’s posts on casualty figures, the British MOD released its estimates of Russian lives lost and wounded.
175-200,000 casualties of which 40-60,000 KIA, caused mostly by artillery and it has a relatively high ratio of deaths to wounded due to rudimentary medical units.
For the Wagner mercenaries, it is one in every two soldiers wounded or KIA.
We can imagine it is much the same figures for the Ukrainian army.
An invitation to a false flag operation?
“I’m also ready to wage war, alongside the Russians, from the territory of Belarus. But only if someone – even a single soldier – enters our territory from there with weapons to kill my people.” – Alexander Lukashenko
James Cavallaro was nominated to sit on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a watchdog within the Organization for American States which he previously served on from 2014-17.
A few days later and the Biden administration withdrew its nomination of the law professor due to his denouncing apartheid in Israel/Palestine.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/02/16/biden-nominee-dropped-after-israel-apartheid-comment/
According to Wagner’s head Yevgeny Prigozhin’s forecast the imminent fall of Bakhmut won’t happen until perhaps as late as April.
He is laying the blame for the delay on the Russian military bureaucracy in his continued criticism of their conduct of the war.
Forced by legal threats to cancel planned strikes, the CWU re-balloted its members.
YES 95.9% TURNOUT 77.3%
Should we heed any predictions?
I recall that the majority of informed opinion believed that the war would be over in three days with the Ukrainian government fleeing Kiev, allowing a puppet pro-Russian government to be set up.
Not just Europe is protesting against the austerity cuts.
Hundreds of retirees have taken to the streets of the Chinese cities of Wuhan and Dalian to protest against cuts to medical benefits.
reforms to the country’s public health insurance system, which have reduced retirees’ monthly personal medical allowances from 260 yuan ($38) per month to 83 yuan ($12)
It is interesting that Vijay Prashad references Kerala since I have first-hand experience, having lived there for three years.
Compared with other Indian states I have visited, Kerala is socially progressive. Socialist? No. Marxist? No. Well-developed social services and welfare infracture on par with the developed world? Yes.
I happened to personally know the local leader of the CPI (M-L) for the district I lived in. He had no knowledge whatsoever of Marx. He was what Indians call a goonda. The purpose of his politics was about which faction controlled the alcohol distribution as Kerala is technically a dry state and the sale of liquor is strictly licensed, offering opportunities for bribery and corruption.
In India, politics is heavily communal – and communal isn’t as benign as it sounds – it is about sectarian differences. Kerala is a bit different because of the religious demographics, a mix of Hindu, Muslim, Christian and some Jains, it is more tolerant and women’s equality is probably the best in India
Another article on Ukrainian workers’ rights being taken away
No such thing as hunmane slaughter houses
