this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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168
Bulletins and News Discussion from April 21st to April 27th, 2025 - JD Vance vs Pope Francis, No Items, Final Destination (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 week ago by SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net
1003 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Image is sourced from this Guardian article.

The Pope's fucking dead.

He gave JD Vance three chocolate easter eggs, exchanged pleasantries for 17 minutes, and then keeled over and died.

What a way to go.

Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.

top 50 comments
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[–] grandepequeno@hexbear.net 19 points 1 day ago

Total blackout in Portugal, Spain and some parts of France!!!

Guees who's not working 2day critical-support

[–] QuillcrestFalconer@hexbear.net 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Huge power outage in Spain, Portugal, some parts of France at least. A while ago.

Edit: No cell data. Using my dad's Internet hot-spot which has satellite Internet

Edit 2: My father says some airplane crashed into a very high voltage line

Edit 3: Some cell data, but very slow, probably under a lot of pressure

Edit 4: airplane story might be fake, but it's confirmed a very high voltage cable got cut somehow

Also radio is so back lol

[–] mkultrawide@hexbear.net 50 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The two other votes were Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley.

[–] jackmaoist@hexbear.net 26 points 1 day ago

China, Iran and NK

Crazy that America just randomly declares peaceful countries as their enemies and everybody is okay with it.

[–] CDommunist@hexbear.net 30 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Crazy that out of the original "squad" AOC became the sellout and Ayanna became principled

Apologies to all AOC haters a few years back, you called it like Babe Ruth pointing out where his home run ball would land

[–] kleeon@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago

Still remember r/cth calling her "Alexandria the Great"

[–] SexMachineStalin@hexbear.net 22 points 1 day ago

There is going to be a protest levied against the Egyptian government at their embassy in Pretoria (28 April, 13:30 SAST), organized by various activists, media outlets and humanitarian groups in South Africa. Bus services have also been provided to take protesters from throughout Soweto and Johannesburg to Pretoria. The nature of the protests is to demand the Egyptian military to forcibly reopen the Rafah Crossing to reallow the delivery of aid which has been left to rot for the past 2 months and allow medical refugees to escape the Strip, alongside others who so may decide to.

Some of Egypt's crimes that were highlighted include the crackdown and arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters following the Western-backed coup that overthrew the democratic election of Mohamed Morsi, with the Sisi regime as the incumbent successor, trafficking by often demanding refugees from Gaza pay as much as R100k ZAR (or R50k ZAR for children) for each to be allowed entry to Egypt (There is an instance of even a Palestinian-South African citizen having their passport seized and being imprisoned without charge for over 1.5 years - Egypt won't allow them to return to South Africa because of the lack of passport that they disposed of and don't consider a South African ID valid enough to fly back into Johannesburg), Egypt and ISISrael have also destroyed many of the cross-border tunnels used to smuggle in good, most importantly food. This also at a time when WFP and other aid groups have alarmed that there is literally no food left in their stocks and aid workers continue to be targeted in bombings. Organizations such as Africa Muslims Agency and Gift of the Givers may even have to face a bitter reality that none of their workers will be able to return to South Africa.

Rafah as a city also no longer exists. The former city has been annihilated in totality, all of it's former 700,000 residents have been ethnically cleansed and all 70km2 of it is under a kill-on-sight order. The entire Gaza Strip has been squeezed down to 100km2, with plans for squeeze down the area further to convert al-Mawasi into an actual concentration camp.

Infinite death to ameriKKKa and death to piSSrael

[–] SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago

Next megathread is here!

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 53 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Big news in the announcement of the latest US Military budget plans, in a GOP proposal. It seems that after being on the receiving end of Iranian designed ballistic missiles, and with the rise of ballistic missile proliferation in Russia, China, India, North Korea, Israel, and even Pakistan, and with the death of the INF treaty that previously banned the development of these weapons for the USA and Russia, the US wants advanced Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicle (MaRV) equipped ballistic missiles, including Anti Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBMs) and their area denial capabilities, for themselves. The US Army alone wants to spend over 800 million dollars (there are more expenses not in the screenshot) on the development and production of modern ballistic missile systems. This is a historic moment, and admission that these weapons are valuable battlefield assets (which I have been saying for years now), despite the distorted information from the cruise missile lobby. This cruise missile lobby in the US is being reigned in for the first time in over three decades (Pershing-II MaRV equipped ballistic missile was retired in 1991). ASBMs have acted as a very effective area denial weapon for Ansarallah/the Houthis in Yemen against US Navy warships and aircraft carriers, even without landing a single hit. The carriers don't dare get within ASBM range.

Source, PDF file format

If anyone wants an example of some of the outlandish lies told by the cruise missile lobby in the USA over the past four plus decades, here's an excerpt from the book "Lighting Bolts - First MaRV":

excerpt, click here to expand

Our mid-January 1978 meeting with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was less helpful than Mike, Jack or I had hoped. Two subjects were on the agenda: (1) in-flight survivability of Pershing-II versus Tomahawk (GLCM) and (2) distribution of important targets in Warsaw Pact nations. The meeting began with a blunt declaration by a DIA senior analyst, who claimed, "Warsaw Pact radar systems would never see Tomahawk cruise missiles."He declared the radar cross section of the cruise missile, as seen from the forward hemisphere, was under 0.1 square meter (roughly one square foot), similar to the size of a "sparrow." With no measured data but only analytic estimates, we contended the cross-section of Tomahawk was closer to a few square feet nose on, increased near the beam to over 10 square meters (i.e. about 100 square feet) and reduced somewhat through the rear hemisphere. The wings and tail surfaces would have a large radar cross section, particularly if the missile flexed or vibrated during flight. By contrast, experience with observable signatures of reentry vehicles suggested Pershing-II would have an order of magnitude smaller radar crosssection throughout its reentry trajectory.

This technical disagreement became heated and persisted through the meeting and until the end of the evaluation. DIA personnel insisted Soviet radars would never detect Tomahawk (i.e., even with multiple cross-range radars deployed). They claimed visual and thermal observable signatures would be even less likely to be seen because the cruise missile flew very low (<100-foot altitude) and high velocity (-550 mph).' Upon return to San Diego, I enlisted Terry G. Smolin to help review the British experience in detecting and defending against 2,300 German V-1 buzz-bomb cruise missiles fired against London between 13 June 1944 and March 1945. British success in finding and intercepting the 25-foot long, 400 mph, V-1s was low in June 1944 but within five weeks of experiencing the threat, they redeployed antiaircraft artillery (AAA), added ground observers, developed aircraft interceptor search-and-attack tactics to engage the missiles. By the end of July 1944, they intercepted 60 percent of the V-is, and by March 1945, over 80 percent of the missiles were prevented from reaching targets.' We concluded that Tomahawk would eventually be detectable and could be destroyed by advanced defensive systems. However, we noted that Tomahawk demanded a different type of defense than was needed to stop Pershing-II MARV.

Side note, this tracks with reported interception rates in Ukraine. Anywhere from 25-66% for cruise missiles, but only 4% for ballistic missiles. Even though war has changed in many ways since WW2, in some ways it's still very similar.

As for why the focus worldwide is on MaRV capable ballistic missile systems and not hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), with HGV programmes being cancelled or making up only a small amount of a missile force compared to MaRVs for say China, here's some required reading: Hypersonic weapons are mediocre. It’s time to stop wasting money on them..

Main problem HGVs have is that their launch is the exact same of that as ballistic missile, a rocket booster straight up into the sky, easily detectable by early warning satellites. However, because HGVs spend a lot more time gliding in the atmosphere with large amounts of drag, they take longer to reach their targets than ballistic missiles, which spend the majority of their flight exoatmospheric. Another problem is that this drag effectively limits HGV maneuverability, even a perfectly performed turn can result in an HGV losing 10% of its energy, on a single turn! Here are some slides from a UK MoD analysis of HGVs, showing just how limited the turn capabilities are. And these calculations are based on an impact velocity of Mach 2, not even close to hypersonic (Mach 5). If the constraint was charged from Mach 2 to Mach 5, the turn/divert capability would be much less! Remember, HGVs have no propulsion system once seperated from the rocket booster, they're gliders.

Expect future hypersonic weapons development to be focused hypersonic cruise missiles well above Mach 5 like the Russian Zircon (there's no point in creating a hypersonic cruise missile that's barely hypersonic, see the US Navy cancellation of the HALO missile), and hypersonic boost vehicles (attaching some sort of rocket motor to the HGV) like Iran's Fattah-2 concept, to negate the energy loss from pure gliding. I also expect we'll see some copies of Iran's Fattah-1 MaRV equipped ballistic missile. The Fattah-1 MaRV was the first MaRV to put a thrust vector control sustainer rocket motor on the MaRV itself, allowing for trajectory changes or corrections while exoatmospheric, and for improved glide phase performance with an additional source of energy.

The fact of the matter is that MaRV equipped ballistic missiles can outperform HGVs in many scenarios (which is why I go on about MaRVs being "game changing" weapons all the time), and even if a MaRV equipped ballistic missile is expensive, HGVs are far more expensive still.

[–] Scarry@hexbear.net 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Love your posts, have been following them for a while 🫶

What is the reasoning for HGVs over MaRVs? To me, a layman, the MaRVs seem blatantly superior. Is the reason technological or simply capitalistic greed?

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Flying low keeps the HGV under the engagement envelope of mid course interception systems like Arrow-3, SM-3, and high altitude terminal interception systems like THAAD. These systems have a minimum altitude of anywhere from 40-150km, in that they can't intercept targets flying lower than that, they're designed to intercept ballistic missiles in the mid course phase, when they're exoatmospheric. Flying low also keeps the HGV out of the detection range of ground based early warning radars and even over the horizon radars to a certain extent, thanks to the curvature of the Earth and concepts such as "plasma stealth". Then there's also the improved maneuverability, but this comes at a cost to energy every time a maneuver is made. So there are scenarios where HGVs are superior to MaRVs. But does this justify the very high development costs, for these limited scenarios? That's what the article I linked talks about, are these advantages worth it, especially when they have trade offs.

[–] Losurdo_Enjoyer@hexbear.net 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

how long do you think it will take them to successfully pivot?

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

There's still nearly 5 billion allocated for cruise missiles, so they'll still play a big role. The cruise missile lobby is still very strong, despite being reigned in a bit for the first time in over 30 years. As for hypersonic weapons, the money allocated is similar to that of ballistic missiles (between 800 million to a billion dollars), but it's all for testing and development, no production costs (unlike ballistic missiles, which include production costs). So it looks like the hype on hypersonic weapons is dying down if they're just giving them a bunch of research projects with no forseeable move to production in the short term.

As for how long it would take to pivot, the USA is the inventor of the MaRV equipped ballistic missile, the Pershing-II was the world's first MaRV. The Martin in Lockheed Martin made it. So if the right amount of money is thrown at at it, it shouldn't take long. The US Space Force for instance calls MaRV equipped ballistic missiles "legacy systems". That tells me that they think it'll be relatively easy to get up and running again. That could be hubris though, it's quite a technical challenge to get these systems operating correctly, it's literally rocket science.

[–] Losurdo_Enjoyer@hexbear.net 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So if the right amount of money is thrown at at it,

not saying this is the case with respect to the military but i see people say this about reshoring industry when the problem isnt so much money as it is the time needed to regather the expertise needed to train people in industrial matters. how much does the same thing apply to the military, especially tech that they've abandoned for decades?

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

As for tech that's been abandoned for decades, the US military's actually working hypersonic weapons program, in the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon/"Dark Eagle", fitted with the Common-Hypersonic Glide Body, is based on a 1980s project called SWERE (Sandia Winged Energetic Reentry Vehicle Experiment). SWERVE was/is kind of a hybrid of an HGV and a MaRV, and uses many of the same technologies a MaRV equipped ballistic missile would use. Lockheed Martin has been heavily involved in the manufacturing of it. So technology wise, everything is there to make ballistic missiles and re entry vehicles. The main question, if they actually pass this proposal and get past the initial production phase, is what will the production rates look like. For instance, the US only has 2 400 ATACMS missiles in it's stockpiles, with half of those being expired. ATACMS entered service 34 years ago. The US only gave 50 ATACMS to Ukraine, with no plans for further deliveries. However, the US plans to replace ATACMS with PrSM, and Lockheed Martin just scored an almost 5 billion dollar contract for PrSM production, an indefinite quantity contract, but realistically between 1000-2000 missiles. The US plans to obtain around 200 PrSM missiles this year. As for the "Dark Eagle", they only are looking at producing 300 total for now. So I think production numbers for the proposed medium range ballistic missiles will probably be between 300-1000 total, anti ship and land attack variants combined, with a focus on quality over quantity. As for the proposed long range systems in IRBM range, easily less than 100 I'd estimate. These contracts will be worth tens of billions of dollars if this gets off of the ground. Big if though.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 39 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

US airstrikes on Yemen continue for the 44th night in a row.

The following governorates have been hit by airstrikes so far:

Sana'a

  • 3 houses hit in Bani Al-Harith District.

Amran

  • 3 airstrikes on al-Jabal al-Aswad (Monte Negro/Black Mountain). This mountain has been hit a lot over the past six weeks.
  • Two airstrikes on Sufyan district.

Warning for potential graphic imagery during ongoing airstrikes:

Al Masirah TV twitter

Xcancel mirror

Opposition sources also report multiple rounds of airstrikes in Saada and Ta'izz Governorates, but this cannot be verified.

[–] ThomasMuentzner@hexbear.net 57 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

okay so it turns out that after all ..

🇰🇵 🤝 🇷🇺 DPRK officially announces sending troops to Russia in accordance with strategic partnership agreement — KCNA

On the occasion of the liberation of Kursk, Comrade Kim Jong Un specially stressed the following:

"They who fought for justice are all heroes and representatives of the honour of the motherland.

In praise of the heroism and bravery of the proud sons of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a monument to the battle feats will be soon erected in our capital city and flowers of praying for immortality given by the motherland and the people will be placed before the tombstones of the fallen soldiers.

The fighting spirit and heroism of the soldiers who demonstrated the great name of the strong and the glory of the victors will shine long in the high platform of respect and honor generation after generation.

The motherland should hand down forever the soul of them who fought to defend the great honor and take important state measures to specially and preferentially treat and take care of the families of the brave soldiers who participated in the war."

[–] RaisedFistJoker@hexbear.net 17 points 1 day ago

the disbelieve the usa 99% hueristic fails again trans-sad

[–] EllenKelly@hexbear.net 49 points 1 day ago (1 children)

OpSec to aspire to: Only discuss your plans after theyre complete, and you've won

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 34 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I wouldn't say quite that. There was plenty of evidence of North Korean involvement in the conflict if you looked at it from a neutral perspective outside of the Russian information space. I'm not even talking about Ukrainian or western information propaganda here, just neutral sources. This is more confirmation of something almost everybody already knew.

[–] OnlyTrueLiberal@hexbear.net 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There was so much bullshit from ukraine about north koreans that i really had hard time trusting them: https://hexbear.net/comment/5813652

Ukraine has been claiming for months that north korean troops have been used in meatwave attacks not only in kursk but also in ukraine. Thousands of them have died. That is when the north koreans haven't been too poorly trained to be used by russians, drunk of their asses or addicted to porn. They have provided some incredibly shitty evidence for the presence of north koreans: intercepted radio/phone calls, ai fakes, photoshops, drone footage from half a kilometer away, photos/videos of asian russians bodies and captives (oh he died to his wounds oh well, oh this one has a broken jaw what a pity) etc. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Why did ukraine feel the need to use fake evidence if they have any real evidence?

So many lies. How is anyone supposed to find out the truth from this storm of lies?

Boy who cried north korean is saying that there are again north koreans. Are there? Who knows? But when a lying liar who lies is telling something, I somehow have hard time trusting them.

It seems like the boy got eaten.

What are these neutral sources you use? Western media was spreading propaganda from biased sources about asiatic hordes taking huge losses: https://www.hs.fi/maailma/art-2000011064341.html

Thousands of losses didn't faze dictator Kim; North Korea has additional troops to support Russia

according to South Korea's National Intelligence Service (Nis), including the BBC, Korea Joongang Daily and The New York Times.

Our aryan soldiers are crushing hordes of untrained subhumans: https://www.hs.fi/maailma/art-2000010847134.html

Ukrainian army: North Korean troops offer no resistance to Ukraine

[–] Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago

There was also this:

and this one:

according to South Korea's National Intelligence Service (Nis)

The right call was to be extremely sceptical

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 28 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I’m pretty sure I and other users here stated that DPRK is for sure fighting in Kursk and Russians were just playing coy

[–] Boise_Idaho@hexbear.net 11 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I think most newsheads thought the DPRK send some troops but just discarded the usual orientalist propaganda from Ukraine.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 23 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I’m pretty sure I and other users here stated that DPRK is for sure fighting in Kursk and Russians were just playing coy

Yeah that was the most reasonable conclusion to make given the evidence at the time, hence me saying that this announcement by North Korea is conformation of something almost all of us already knew. But there still were some holdouts (on here, twitter, reddit, etc) that denied North Korean participation in the war up until this announcement. I think some continue to deny it despite the announcement lol.

Also B on Moon of Alabama kept denying North Korean involvement even after the evidence piled up.

[–] qcop@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

I know I was holding my opinion and doubting it until we saw the "interview" of the 2 korean POWs a few months ago. This convinced me DPRK had sent troops.

[–] CredibleBattery@hexbear.net 29 points 1 day ago

ogey, uncritical support now.

long live the people's democratic republic of Korea.

[–] grandepequeno@hexbear.net 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This still doesn't mean that they were fighting as early as western claims said. But I remember when Putin was asked if some satellite images he was being shown were DPRK soldiers he said like "well if you have pictures of it that reflects something, no?", at the time I assumed they were just koreans doing construction worked in kursk or in the donbass. Could be that the plan was always to eventually have them see some combat

[–] ThomasMuentzner@hexbear.net 8 points 1 day ago

Stupid Kursk operation ran directly into Putins Legal-Fetishmus it seem . It was Russian Home territory so he could use "defense Treaty" with north korea and Conscript.

So 2 new Pools of Manpower to attrit the 1 Pool of Manpower that Ukraine draws from.

[–] companero@hexbear.net 29 points 1 day ago (4 children)

It seems like with the official announcement, the de facto "press embargo" has ended.

Here's some more:

https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1k97hew/ru_pov_moscow_choson_choir_performs_for_north/

https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/1k98eu6/ru_pov_several_months_old_footage_of_the_russian/

The whole situation still seems a bit weird to me, though. Based on what we know, they were only really involved in the capture of Plekhovo, which wasn't really that important AFAIK.

Maybe they did underperform? That would be a bit worrying, since they were supposed to be the DPRK's top special forces.

[–] Satanic_Mills@hexbear.net 38 points 1 day ago

Probably given a minor neutered Ukrainian stronghold to assault, as practice.

Need to get your troops proper combat experience but also not get them all killed.

[–] ffmpreg@hexbear.net 32 points 1 day ago

press embargo was likely for optics, russian allies participating puts pressure on ukrainian allies to do likewise. too far up the escalation ladder for comfort for most

[–] ThomasMuentzner@hexbear.net 19 points 1 day ago

It seems like with the official announcement, the de facto "press embargo" has ended.

Noted , I have removed the Spoiler tag

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[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 60 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Hundreds of officers belonging to the UAE-backed 'Yemeni National Resistance' have defected to Ansarallah (the Houthis), and gathered in the capital Sanaa for briefing. These officers defected from the UAE-backed 'Yemeni National Resistance', their territory is on Yemen's Western Coast

They are led by General Tareq Saleh, nephew of the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former Houthi ally that defected to the side of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in 2017. It seems almost all of their high command have defected.

  • Telegram
[–] mkultrawide@hexbear.net 38 points 1 day ago

I just hope they get vetted well. Rapid expansion of forces and poor security vetting is reportedly how Israel infiltrated Hezbollah since 2006.

[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

here's a pic of some of the officers in Saana, attending briefings.

supposedly it is most of the YNR's general staff

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

UAE keeps losing

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 20 points 1 day ago

We all love to see it.

[–] Lemister@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago

UAE is really mirror Turkey.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Mercenaries going to mercenary. I guess it's become clear to them that a UAE backed ground offensive against Ansarallah/the Houthis is not happening in the current moment (opposition too fractured and divided), so they're going to switch sides in the meantime. Or some kind of half baked offensive is being planned, and they don't want to die, so they defect to the opponent.

Overall the UAE is just taking loss after loss on the geopolitical front.

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[–] Lemmygradwontallowme@hexbear.net 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

a defection inside a defection.

[–] BreathThroughTheTube@hexbear.net 33 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

this is how we know they are leftists (joke)

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[–] RedStarOS@hexbear.net 64 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Israel bombs Lebanon's capital Beirut

Israeli forces have carried out an airstrike on Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, in the latest violation of a ceasefire agreement with the country's resistance movement, Hezbollah.

[–] mkultrawide@hexbear.net 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Is Aoun at risk of losing his mandate if this just keeps happening while he does nothing except make trips to France saying Israel should stop? The Israelis are clearly trying to restart the civil war as a pretext to reinvade.

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[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 44 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Julian Assange and His Family Attend Pope Francis’ Funeral - Telegram

Article

‘We’ve all come to Rome to express our family’s gratitude for the Pope’s support during Julian’s persecution,” Stella Assange said. On Saturday, Australian journalist Julian Assange went to St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican to pay tribute to Pope Francis.

On social media, his wife Stella posted a photo of the WikiLeaks founder and their two children on Via della Conciliazione, with the Basilica in the background.

“Now Julian is free, we have all come to Rome to express our family’s gratitude for the Pope’s support during Julian’s persecution,” she said.

“Our children and I had the honor of meeting Pope Francis in June 2023 to discuss how to free Julian from Belmarsh prison. Francis wrote to Julian in prison and even proposed to grant him asylum at the Vatican,” Stella added.

Could you imagine Julian living with Pope Francis in the Vatican lol

[–] EllenKelly@hexbear.net 15 points 1 day ago

I'm was nervous Assange was going to come back to aus and start some new third way party. His dad was getting lots of chances to speak at events and he's cooked. Julian is loosely connected to a lot of pretty shit people here iirc.

I'm not really loving this development, but maybe its nothing

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[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 47 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Chief of General Staff Gerasimov through TASS has confirmed the presence of DPRK fighters in some capacity:

https://archive.ph/znkqi

Gerasimov also commended the role of North Korean fighters in the liberation of the Kursk Region.

"I want specially to note the participation of servicemen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in liberating border areas of the Kursk Region who in accordance with the Treaty on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between our countries rendered considerable assistance in crushing the Ukrainian army’s combat group that had launched an incursion," Gerasimov said.

As Russia’s military chief pointed out, "soldiers and officers of the Korean People’s Army were accomplishing combat objectives shoulder to shoulder with Russian servicemen and in the process of repelling the Ukrainian incursion showed high professionalism and displayed endurance, courage and heroism in combat."

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