World News Thread

[N.E. Brigand]

A couple years ago, someone looked up a whole bunch of 1912 newspapers and posted editorial quips on the sinking of the Titanic. Brutal. Apparently there was a bunch of bad poetry written about the disaster too. (h/t)

"At last accounts, the iceberg was uninjured."

[N.E. Brigand]

I had never before heard how James Cameron was in a submersible viewing the Titanic wreck when the 9/11 attacks happened, and that upon returning to the surface, he learned about the attacks from the late Bill Paxton, whom Cameron had engaged to narrate the Titanic documentary they were filming. There's even video of Cameron asking, "What happened?" and Paxton saying, "The worst terrorist attack in history, Jim."

[Frelga]

Polish PM @MorawieckiM just called on NATO to station nuclear weapons in Poland in response to Russia transferring nuclear weapons to Belarus.

Poland wants to be included in NATO’s Nuclear Sharing Programme.

I don't like where the world is going. But I don't blame Poland, especially given the possibility that the US will put Trump back in charge.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Israel passes law stripping Supreme Court of power

[N.E. Brigand]

The Times of Israel and Reuters are reporting respectively that in light of this law that undermines the independence of Israel's judiciary, the credit ratings analyst Moody's and the financial services firm Morgan Stanley are downgrading their position on Israel's credit. Turns out some businesses don't like it when a country's executive can overturn the rule of law.

[N.E. Brigand]

Here is video apparently showing Bolsonaro's supporters attacking a mounted policeman and his horse, knocking the policeman to the ground where he is beaten.

Brazilian authorities are investigating the nation's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, for "selling embezzled watches at a shopping mall outside Philadelphia."

Remember that line in Unfinished Tales about Saruman aspiring to be a dragon but ending up a jackdaw?

[Inanna]

India’s spacecraft has landed on the moon. Yay.

[N.E. Brigand]

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the National Security Minister in Israel, said yesterday that Israeli freedom of movement in the West Bank trumps that of Palestians in that Palestinian territory.

[Frelga]

India’s spacecraft has landed on the moon. Yay.

Moon welcomes the Indian spacecraft, after successfully repelling the attempted Russian invasion.

Factbox: Russia's Luna-25 moon mission fails: what you need to know

"The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon," Roskosmos said in a statement.

[Inanna]

Lol, Frelga.

[Frelga]

Well this is an interesting development.

Joint US-Armenia military exercises to be held in Armenia next week. Unprecedented, and a big step considering Azerbaijan's increasing threats and military mobilization.

Armenia-U.S. joint exercise "EAGLE PARTNER 2023"

This came after Armenia expressed disappointment in Russian promises of "peacekeeping" between it and Azerbaijan, especially in the contested Nagorny Karabakh region.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not sure that the Jerusalem Post is the most objective source of information about Mexican politics, but still very interesting.

Mexico on track to have its first Jewish, female president

Either way, Mexico will have a female president before the U.S. does, because both leading candidates are women.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I moved the discussion about Hamas' Attack on Israel to its own thread.

[Túrin Turambar]

A grim night for Labo(u)r supporters in the antipodes last night. New Zealand's Labour Government has been defeated, while in Australia, the Federal Labor Government's proposal to amend the Constitution to create an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory body went down decisively.

[Impenitent]

I was taken aback by the result - not that the proposal was defeated but that not one state passed it.

[Túrin Turambar]

I was taken aback by the result - not that the proposal was defeated but that not one state passed it.

The opinion polls suggest there was a late swing against the motion. Or rather, the 'Yes' case kept on tanking the end. I did some canvassing for Yes in Keilor in early September, it was pretty miserable.

(graph from Wikipedia)

Screenshot 2023-10-15 102200.png (59.77 KiB) Viewed 3494 times

[RoseMorninStar]

[Jude]

Was there some heavy campaigning by the No side that won people over?

[Impenitent]

The No campaign used scare tactics and misinformation.

The booth I was at yesterday had a 70 / 30 stream of yes voters, and I foolishly got my hopes up.

[Túrin Turambar]

I think that high-profile opposition from Indigenous people on both the left (Senator Thorpe) and right (Senator Price, Warren Mundine) created a muddled situation, and given the cost of living crisis, the Yes Campaign failed to cut through the confusion. The response I got out in Keilor was mostly apathy.