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Sudan recently eliminated a group of Colombian and Ukrainian mercenaries:

Sudanese troops have killed “a large number” of foreign fighters, including Ukrainian mercenaries, backing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the country’s protracted civil war, according to a statement by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) made on Thursday.

The killings occurred during clashes with the RSF in the besieged city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, the army said.

The SAF said mercenaries from Colombia and Ukraine, including some “who were engineers in the field of drones and electronic systems,” had “tried to infiltrate the outskirts of the city’s neighborhoods.”

https://www.rt.com/africa/625861-ukrainian-mercenaries-backing-rebels-in/

Trump has posted the full Hamas statement on the "Gaza peace plan" without comment on Truth Social.

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is saying that Trump is recording his response to Hamas' "acceptance" of the plan.

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Trump now says that "Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly!"

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Short rant and some thoughts about the left and immigration:

I commented below in response to the post about Putin’s blaming “mass immigration” for destroying European culture, and thought maybe to expand a bit more from that comment.

It’s been a bit unsettling for me this week because of the overreaction spontaneously erupted on the Chinese internet regarding the K visa. As a country not known for its openness for immigration, for about an 48-hour window, this was perhaps the first time that many - based on an unsubstantiated rumor - have had to grapple with the anxiety of facing “mass immigration”.

Although I’ve seen widespread latent and casual racism and xenophobia over the years, especially against Indians, this is really the first time that such spontaneous eruption of anti-immigration discourse that occurred in a very organic fashion, when the “fear of mass immigration” is suddenly being perceived as real instead of something you’d never thought could happen in your country.

The short version is that China announced a new K visa for foreign STEM talents back in August that would be implemented on October 1st, without much attention paid to it. Then last month, Trump imposed a $100k free on H-1B, and Western media started reporting on how China is going to benefit from it, and pointed to China’s K visa policy.

Somehow, someone put the two together and just 2-3 days before the National Day when the K visa was due to be officially implemented, fearmongering rumors began to spread virally on Chinese social media, insinuating that how it opens up the floodgates for foreigners to enter China.

To be fair, the policy announcement appears half-baked without much detail about how exactly it is going to be implemented, so it leaves people more confused than ever. You can apply for the visa if you are:

• 18-45 years old
• Holds a STEM bachelors degree from a “renowned” school or work in a “renowned” institute
• No language requirement
• No employment requirement

The biggest problem here lies in what exactly is the purpose of the K visa?

I doubt any foreigner who don’t speak Mandarin Chinese semi-proficiently will ever get hired by Chinese companies because most of them are absolutely not equipped to communicate in another language. So, where are these people going to find work?

If we’re talking about foreign talents working in academia, then there is already an R visa “high-level foreign talents” for top people in the field, yet the simple requirement here is simply holding a bachelors degree.

Finally, if we’re talking about foreign multinational corporations that are indeed equipped to accommodate English speakers, then these companies have their own recruitment process, competitive application process and visa sponsorship, not to mention very limited spots usually only available for the top graduates.

As such, it is easy to see where there is plenty of room for imagination, and fearmongering conspiracies were abound, with plenty of comments like “I can finally understand what MAGA / rednecks (红脖子) are going through in their country”.

In general, the complaints took on a few flavors (cw: racism, obviously):

1. More competition in the labor market - “we already have plenty of Masters and PhD graduates with couldn’t find jobs, why are we trying to attract more foreigners with only Bachelor’s degree?” - this is the one I consider to be the most valid criticism.
2. Anxiety about immigrants flooding the country - “We don’t want low-quality (“inferior”, 劣质) foreigners to flood our country! Have you seen how Indians have built an entire industry of “fake qualifications” to game the Western immigration system?” - this obviously refer to Indians and Africans whom many only know of through the most uncharitable stereotypes propagated through online viral content and have never interacted with any of them in real life
3. Anxiety about “losers back home” Westerners - “Who do you think are the foreigners (洋人) that would want to come here? Obviously those who are losers who could no longer compete in their own countries!”
4. Latent sexual anxiety about foreigners coming in and marrying the local women - this really just follows an already intensifying gender discourse(TM) taking place since the past year, in a country where there is already gender imbalance, and an ongoing trend where marriage registration has been trending down and divorce rates have been trending up (apparently has a lot to do with economic downturn).
5. It’s actually a backdoor for rich overseas Chinese who have emigrated to come back - this is, funnily enough, the most likely explanation for the government’s policy that has remained so obscure, but what do we know?

Nonetheless, the actual reasons are not important. What is interesting, and scary, is the overreaction against the perceived “threat” of mass immigration, which was likely a culmination of a combination of factors, including the precariousness of the average people who are anxious about the unstable job market and economic uncertainty, being persistently fed with widespread viral content that propagate the most uncharitable stereotype about other countries, as well as the intensifying antagonism between the sexes as less and less people are interested in settling down to raise a family.

Typically, as leftists, we would associate this kind of anti-immigration anger to be intrinsic to capitalist countries, because the capitalists want the working class to hate each other. But how can you explain the situation in China?

A point to make here is that there is also increasing cognitive dissonance between perceiving one own’s country to have become a great superpower with the many advanced technologies, surpassing even the West, yet at the same time they are working harder and longer hours than ever, no stability in the job market, wages are barely rising, quality of life is not improving, the house prices remain far out of reach, and there is a general pessimistic outlook for future.

To give you an example, imagine you went through your primary school in the 2000s, chances are in a few years, your parents would soon purchase a new house, one that would be a huge upgrade over your childhood home in some provincial town. Things look to be getting better by the day, and you dream about doing the same one day.

Then, you went through middle/high school hoping to score in gaokao to get into university, obtain a degree and get a nice paying job post-college, settle down and raise a family. There was already some alarming trend about the property market, and the house prices are starting to look a bit out of reach, but nothing too much to worry yet.

By the time you are studying in university, the property price would have peaked and plunged. It would have been a good thing if it weren’t such a drag on the entire economy, and you are suddenly facing a worse prospect that you never thought would happen growing up: unemployment, or the poor prospect of getting employed.

This is how fast an economic trend can go in China - what takes several generations of wealth accumulation to happen in Western capitalist countries, it can happen in 10-15 years in China. You are literally experiencing the rise and fall in real time, and there is obviously a lot of cognitive dissonance to take in.

Yes, the country is now a superpower. We have the most advanced 6th gen fighter. We have the best EV industries in the world. The best robotics and automation in industries. But - is that making your life easier? Why are you only getting two off-days per month? Why are you still being asked to work overtime by your boss every damn week? Despite being more productive than ever, why are your wages not rising?

All of this anxiety is being coalesced into a latent rage. It is perhaps not surprising that people would lash out when they hear some fearmongering rumor about mass immigration.

And I think there’s some lesson for the left here when it comes to immigration:

1. You better make sure you can create a system with a robust social safety net, minimum wage, job guarantee, free housing and healthcare that are all sacred rights to the workers.
2. You must be able to convince the people that they are getting the fair distribution of wealth in the economy that are in proportion with their labor.
3. You must be able to convincingly demonstrate that you have the economic means to implement all these policies in a fair manner, and that foreigners seeking employment in your country is not here to take away the wealth and the fruits of their labor, nor are they here to drive down wages and cause competition in the labor market.

Hamas responded to the "peace plan", accepting to enter negotiations. I'm almost certain these will be rejected or destroyed by America and "Israel". The Hamas response states the need for Palestinian consensus for the interim governing authority, which the empire will never accept.

The Invasion of Panama, Manuel Noriega and Venezuela:

Although we cannot rule out the possibility of a US invasion of Venezuela (especially since Trump became president), the situation is very different from that of Panama (a country that together with the US invasion of the DR in 1965, people like to compare to). For now, the US seems to want to continue pressuring Venezuela by attacking ships near Venezuelan-controlled waters, and Venezuela does not seem to be backing down at the moment. The same is true of Venezuela's regional allies, Colombia, Brazil, and Suriname, which have condemned the US presence in the region. We will see if the US attempts to attack a target within Venezuela and how the Venezuelan military and Latin American countries will react to this.

Almost 20 years ago Zizek was my gateway to "Marxist" philosophy. Even nowadays, every 6 months or so I check out what is he up to

It's incredible that someone could grift so long as a Marxist while being incapable of doing historical materialist analysis

It's indistinguishable from a Guardian/WaPo Oped

It’s no surprise that Trump has also suggested for Russia to rejoin the G7, signaling a broader re-normalization of ties. So, it’s not that Europe should unite to become one more major power within the BRICS space; rather, it should become an exception—a place that offers support to the victims of the new BRICS superpowers, each defining its own sphere of influence.

The announced American takeover of Gaza demonstrates what happens within a superpower’s sphere of influence.

Are you trying to pretend in 2025 CE that the neoliberal EU is not a satrapy of the US? Which Europe should unite? The neocon technocrats led by Von Der Leyen? Or the barely existing "Left"?

This brings us to the scandalous performance known as the Munich Security Conference. There, British historian Timothy Garton Ash raised the timely question: “Will the peace be like Chamberlain’s peace for our time?” My answer is that it could turn out to be even worse, because our time is one of a new BRICS multipolarity. Both prospects of peace in which Trump’s administration is now engaged—Gaza and Ukraine—are exemplary cases of how the emerging BRICS world will function: yes, it will be multipolar, but in the sense of a few strong states, each defining its own sphere of influence and limiting the sovereignty of its smaller neighbors. Trump’s foreign policy fully fits this BRICS model: he concedes that Ukraine lies within Russia’s sphere of influence, while insisting that Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and Panama belong to the U.S. sphere. The reality of BRICS thus uncannily echoes George Orwell’s 1984, set in a world divided into three superstates locked in constant warfare: Oceania, Eurasia, and East Asia. This world mirrors today’s reality with some adjustments: the United States conquers Latin America as Oceania, while Russia conquers Western Europe as Eurasia (except the UK, which remains part of Oceania).

That is why Trump immediately engaged in negotiations with Putin, openly excluding Europe from peace talks. Even when Trump and Putin disagree on many things, they already speak the same language. Putin’s (surprising, to some) endorsement of Trump’s plan to annex Greenland reflects their shared vision of a new world order. The two also share responsibility for major war crimes: in Gaza and the West Bank, and in Ukraine. However, China is an exception—it is far less expansionist, more interested in open trade, and seemingly better positioned to foster innovative capitalism (digital products, medicine, electric vehicles…). Although Europe is economically strong, it is becoming increasingly marginalized geopolitically, ignored more with each passing day. If the EU wishes to survive, it must assert its sovereignty forcefully—not just against Russia, but primarily against the United States.

Look at the actual numbers motherfucker! How many tons of steel produced by each power bloc?! Not fuckin GDP, but actual ammo?!

However, one should leave behind the rather boring enumeration of measures and focus on the ostensibly neutral terms like “common sense” and “sanity.” The problem here is that the era of common sense—when we could rely on traditional values and customs in daily life—is over, and not only in the domain of sexuality.

Alright, fuck you, you liberal hack