World News Thread

[N.E. Brigand]

Reuters: "Venezuelans vote in referendum on disputed territory with Guyana."

The dispute has been going on for about a century. It concerns some 60,000 sqare miles, which is about two-thirds of Guyana. There was an agreement in 1966 that set the current borders. An international court has recently been reviewing the case but is unlikely to render a decision for years. This referendum would authorize Venezuela's government to ignore the court's decision if they don't like it. The area is dense jungle, but recently it was found to hold large oil deposits.

[N.E. Brigand]

Reuters: "Venezuelans vote in referendum on disputed territory with Guyana."

The dispute has been going on for about a century. It concerns some 60,000 sqare miles, which is about two-thirds of Guyana. There was an agreement in 1966 that set the current borders. An international court has recently been reviewing the case but is unlikely to render a decision for years. This referendum would authorize Venezuela's government to ignore the court's decision if they don't like it. The area is dense jungle, but recently it was found to hold large oil deposits.

Apparently an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans will back President Maduro should he decide to take over two-thirds of Guyana, because the measure passed with 95% approval. I have to say that faking the results so explicitly does show that Maduro doesn't really care that people know it's a fraud.

[Túrin Turambar]

Reuters: "Venezuelans vote in referendum on disputed territory with Guyana."

The dispute has been going on for about a century. It concerns some 60,000 sqare miles, which is about two-thirds of Guyana. There was an agreement in 1966 that set the current borders. An international court has recently been reviewing the case but is unlikely to render a decision for years. This referendum would authorize Venezuela's government to ignore the court's decision if they don't like it. The area is dense jungle, but recently it was found to hold large oil deposits.

Apparently an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans will back President Maduro should he decide to take over two-thirds of Guyana, because the measure passed with 95% approval. I have to say that faking the results so explicitly does show that Maduro doesn't really care that people know it's a fraud.

I agree. The entire thing is bizarre, from insisting on having a referendum to justify what may be an invasion to making it such a transparently fake one.

Funnily enough, local elections in North Korea saw 0.01% of voters vote against the regime, which is an unprecedented level of opposition and has led observers to debate whether this is actually Pyongyang losing its grip or allowing some token 'no' votes for show:

North Korean local elections.png (6.26 KiB) Viewed 3809 times

[RoseMorninStar]

Or as an excuse to search for & crack down on dissidents.

[N.E. Brigand]

Argentina's new leader apparently is doing what Donald Trump would like to do in the U.S. if he wins next year:

[RoseMorninStar]

Oh. My.

[Frelga]

This is supposed to be a libertarian.

[Jude]

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, the longest-serving monarch after Elizabeth II, is abdicating in favour of her son.

But wait! There's more!

In the eary 1970s, the Queen was inspired to illustrate The Lord of the Rings. She sent her illustrations to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings. In 1977, Queen Margrethe's drawings were published in the Danish translation of the book (Ringenes Herre, edition by publishers Gyldendal; one illustration for each chapter[1]), redrawn by the British artist Eric Fraser. Under the pseudonym Ingahild Grathmer her illustrations were also featured in a British edition of The Lord of the Rings, published by The Folio Society.

(from article on Tolkien Gateway

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I had forgotten that little tidbit! Thanks!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Some rare good news out of Israel.

[N.E. Brigand]

Almost 100 people were killed yesterday when two bombs exploded in the city of Kerman in southwest Iran. The victims were attending a memorial for Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military leader whom the U.S. killed in Iraq four years ago yesterday. (Soleimani was arguably a legitimate military target who was definitely responsible for a lot of terrorist activity in the Middle East, although the assassination seems to have been a rash move and resulted in U.S. soldiers being injured in Iranian missile strikes. It also resulted in Iran accidentally shooting down a Ukrainian commercial flight, killing 176 people.) Today ISIS claimed responsibility for yesterday's bombing.

[River]

Iran has been increasing security on its borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan as a result. This could get interesting.

[N.E. Brigand]

Well, this is not good.

Today, there were four attacks against three separate commercial vessels operating in international waters in the southern Red Sea. These three vessels are connected to 14 separate nations. The Arleigh-Burke Class destroyer USS CARNEY responded to the distress calls from the ships and provided assistance. ...

Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, most of which were successfully thwarted by the U.S. and U.K. armed services, have continued rather incessantly for the past month, and twice led major shipping carriers to withdraw their traffic from that route. In response:

"The U.S. and U.K, with support from Australia, the Netherlands, Bahrain, and Canada, conducted joint strikes tonight against Houthi targets in Yemen, per a U.S. Department of Defense official. The strikes involved U.S. aircraft, ships and submarines."

Edited to observe that there are a ridiculous number of people on social media arguing that the Houthis were right to attack the ships. I echo this person:

[N.E. Brigand]

Two U.S. Navy SEALS have been missing since last week amidst an operation that seized "Iranian-made ballistic missile and cruise missile components from a vessel off the coast of Somalia ... that was destined for Houthis in Yemen". They went overboard in high swells during that operation.

[N.E. Brigand]

A Canadian court has ruled that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the rights of truck drivers when he invoked emergency powers in 2022 to crack down on their illegal protests.

[Jude]

And this Canadian says that ruling is bullshit.

[Sunsilver]

And this one agrees! What about the rights of the citizens of Ottawa? The truckers held the city hostage for a month!!

[N.E. Brigand]

Almost 100 people were killed yesterday when two bombs exploded in the city of Kerman in southwest Iran. The victims were attending a memorial for Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military leader whom the U.S. killed in Iraq four years ago yesterday. (Soleimani was arguably a legitimate military target who was definitely responsible for a lot of terrorist activity in the Middle East, although the assassination seems to have been a rash move and resulted in U.S. soldiers being injured in Iranian missile strikes. It also resulted in Iran accidentally shooting down a Ukrainian commercial flight, killing 176 people.) Today ISIS claimed responsibility for yesterday's bombing.

Iran has been increasing security on its borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan as a result. This could get interesting.

This is interesting. The Wall Street Journal reports that the United States had advance intelligence that ISIS was planning this attack and that the U.S. sent the intelligence to Iranian officials, who may have ignored it.

[N.E. Brigand]

Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan (2018-2022), who is serving a three-year jail term on corruption charges, was sentenced today to another ten years' imprisonment for revealing state secrets. Apparently he claimed there was a diplomatic cable that showed he was originally ousted due to a U.S.-led conspiracy with Pakistan's military, and it was that claim which got him jailed today. Kind of a catch-22, isn't it? If the cable isn't real, then I would think he can't be convicted for "leaking" it. But if it is real, then he shouldn't have been jailed in the first place.

[N.E. Brigand]

ProPublica yesterday published an article titled "Did Drug Traffickers Funnel Millions of Dollars to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s First Campaign?" It’s a very long article, but apparently if AMLO didn’t know where the $2 million came from and why, some of his aides surely did.