International Politics

[Alpacx]

On Friday night, in two Ottawa bars, campaign workers shared how the party was behind this move — how two Liberal Party staffers attended the conference intended for conservatives and placed these buttons in areas where attendees would find them.

One of those conversations was in the immediate earshot of this journalist.

[Nintex]

The mob visits Paris

[benji]

The list of penalties for insulting people in Germany reads like a classic Mastercard advert. Displaying your middle finger to a fellow motorist: €600 to €4,000. Using the informal version of the word “you” to a police officer: €600. Calling someone a “wanker”: €1,000.

To all this, a growing number of Germans are inclined to add that upholding freedom of expression is priceless.

Unease at the country’s stringent laws governing abusive language and gestures has peaked this week after a radical right-wing journalist was given a suspended seven-month prison sentence for mocking Nancy Faeser, the centre-left interior minister.

...

Last year, when the interior ministry published an innocuous social media video of Faeser holding up handwritten signs in support of Germany’s Jews, Bendels pounced, doctoring the image so that the minister’s message read: “I hate freedom of opinion.”



Faeser filed a criminal complaint. On Tuesday the district court in Bamberg, Bavaria, found Bendels guilty of “abuse, slander or defamation against persons in political life”.

He had, a spokeswoman for the court said, “deliberately set out an untrue factual claim”. A casual reader scrolling through Bendels’s profile on X would not recognise that the picture had been edited. It could not be treated as satire.

Insults deemed to damage the honour of another individual have been criminalised in the German world since at least as far back as the 18th century, when Prussian legislation covered more than 150 different kinds of defamation.

It was also illegal to be rude about foreign heads of state or diplomats until 2017, when the comedian Jan Böhermann caused a continental-scale commotion with a graphically disobliging satirical poem about President Erdogan of Turkey.

The specific law under which Bendels was prosecuted is a particular headache for the authorities. Paragraph 188 of the German criminal code was designed to give politicians special protection against verbal abuse and false claims with penalties as stiff as five years in prison for the most serious cases.

This was the provision under which a man from Kaiserslautern was fined last year for posting to his 417 friends on Facebook that the former chancellor Angela Merkel was a “stupid slag”.

Over the past few years cabinet ministers have used this mechanism on an industrial scale to report their critics to police, filing hundreds of criminal complaints.

In one of the most notorious recent cases, the vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck — a Green Party member — reported a man who had edited a picture of a Schwarzkopf shampoo bottle to imply that Habeck was a schwachkopf, or dunderhead. Police raided the man’s house and confiscated his tablet computer.

[Uncle]

"dude, did you just imply the government doesn't support free speech? don't you know it's illegal to say that, dog?"

[Polident]

This was the provision under which a man from Kaiserslautern was fined last year for posting to his 417 friends on Facebook that the former chancellor Angela Merkel was a “stupid slag”.

Well, 416 friends.

[Polident]

With India and Pakistan kicking off, what other historical ethnic feuds are left to go? China going after Taiwan next?

[Alpacx]

With India and Pakistan kicking off, what other historical ethnic feuds are left to go? China going after Taiwan next?

New Fenian Raids.

[Nintex]

Political conversations in Europe last week

"Nintex do you think Trump will give up Ukraine to Russia?"  

Political conversations in Europe this week

"Nintex do you think Trump will go to war with Russia because he's losing patience with Putin and wants his minerals"

[Nintex]

Eventually you go under the bus

[killamajig]

[Potato]

Exercised my democratic right duty today and voted in the federal election. 

Fuck Peter Dutton. First time i've not voted for the Liberal Party in a long time.

[Nintex]

Young Canadians: "we just want affordable housing"

Boomers: "Orange Man Bad"

[benji]

Look at "making Canada a better place to live" too. 

[Polident]

Did you mean to post that here?

https://thebire.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=16

[Nintex]

Nah it's Canada but the boomers are awful everywhere.

[Alpacx]

[Alpacx]

[killamajig]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/epicenter-of-explosion-at-iranian-port-tied-to-charity-overseen-by-its-supreme-leader/ar-AA1DXrR1

The explosion that rocked an Iranian port, killing at least 70 people and injuring more than 1,000 others, had its epicenter at a facility ultimately owned by a charitable foundation overseen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office.

That foundation, known as Bonyad Mostazafan, faces American sanctions over it helping the 86-year-old Khamenei “to enrich his office, reward his political allies and persecute the regime’s enemies,” the U.S. Treasury has said. Its top personnel also have direct ties to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which oversees Tehran’s ballistic missile arsenal and operations abroad targeting the Islamic Republic’s enemies.

Those associations come as authorities still haven’t offered a cause for the blast Saturday at the Shahid Rajaei port near Bandar Abbas. The port reportedly took in a chemical component needed for solid fuel for ballistic missiles — something denied by authorities though local reports now increasingly point toward a mysterious, highly explosive cargo being delivered there.

“It’s known that Iran has been doing all kinds of sanctions busting and so on in order to supply their weapons program,” said Andrea Sella, a professor of chemistry at the University College London. “The surprising thing is the fact that this cargo, given that it’s a highly energetic material ... was sitting right in the middle of the port warehousing area.”

He added: “That strikes me as nuts.”

Bonyad Mostazafan, or the “Foundation of the Oppressed,” is believed to be the largest in the country by assets, with a 2008 U.S. Congressional Research Service report suggesting it represented 10% of Iran’s entire gross domestic product at the time. The Treasury in 2020 put its worth into the billions of dollars. Its network includes interests in mining, railroads, energy, steel and shipping through its Sina Port and Marine Services Development Co.

*spit take*

Wow, that's quite the charity. 

Smart moneys on "fertilizer" aka ANFO. This feels like a Beirut thing.


EDIT:
“Foundation of the Oppressed,”

Can we make that ResetEra's new name?

[Nintex]

It seems that everyone has forgotten that when Syria fell it was basically a Captagon lab. Just warehouses full of mass produced drugs.

Most of these countries have nothing going on economically so I bet that Iran is basically a drugs lab too and then you add some weapons to it and well.... boom.

[Nintex]

wash away our sacrifices and achievement.

If you think about who really won World War 2 it was President Trump.

[Potato]

Does someone wanna give these cunts a rundown of who was a German ally until June 1941?

[Potato]

Pretty pleased with the Australian electorate this morning even though I'm not traditionally a Labor Party supporter (this was the first time I've voted Labor since a state government election 20 years ago). 

The result was a sound rejection of the conservatisation of our traditionally centre right Liberal Party. So much of a rejection that the leader of the opposition (and Voldemort cosplayer) Peter Dutton lost his seat. 

Good riddance to conservative rubbish. Now, if they get back to being a centre right party they can have my vote back in 3 years.

Edit: the result is being painted internationally as a reaction and rejection of Trumpism...and I can't dispute that at all.

[killamajig]

For those keeping track Ukraine successfully took TWO Su-30s in the latest naval drone strike near Novorossiysk

https://ukranews.com/en/news/1079927-defense-ministry-tells-how-afu-destroyed-2-russian-su-30-aircraft-in-black-sea

The Defense Forces destroyed two russian Su-30 aircraft in the Black Sea using AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared-guided air-to-air missiles.
The head of the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, told this to The War Zone, RBC-Ukraine reports.

Thus, Ukrainian reconnaissance aircraft shot down two Su-30 Flanker multi-role fighters using AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared-guided air-to-air missiles.

This is the first time that fighters have been shot down by unmanned boats, and the first use of AIM-9 from an unmanned boat to destroy the enemy.

Those aren't as easily replaced by donkeys or scooters. 

It should make this Victory Day even gloomier.

[Nintex]

It should make this Victory Day even gloomier.

[Eric Cartman]

red light saber I notice

[benji]

https://x.com/OlgaBazova/status/1918333654813818994
https://x.com/Alex_Oloyede2/status/1918230144453414973

Where'd all the material supply come from?

[Potato]

red light saber I notice

Missed opportunity to make it red, white and blue...

[killamajig]

https://kyivindependent.com/kadyrov-asks-putin-to-resign-as-head-of-chechen-republic/

Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin if he can resign as head of the Chechen Republic, he told Russian state-controlled media Chechnya Today on May 6.

Kadyrov has ruled Chechnya since 2007. Under his leadership, the Chechen Republic has become known as one of the most dangerous parts of the world, infamous for forced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings.

The U.S. and other Western allies have imposed sanctions against Kadyrov and his family over human rights abuses in Chechnya.

"I've heard those rumors (about resignation), too. They say all sorts of things. On the contrary, I am asking to be dismissed from my post," Kadyrov said. "I hope that my request will be supported."

Kadyrov clarified that the decision on whether he will be dismissed is up to Putin now.

Kadyrov's statement comes amid news that the Chechen dictator's illness, pancreatic necrosis, is progressing rapidly, and he has allegedly appointed his minor son Adam as his successor, according to the independent Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe.

This is not the first time Kadyrov has asked for his resignation. He made similar statements in 2016, 2017, and 2022, according to the independent Russian media outlet Astra. In previous cases, his resignation was not approved.

[Nintex]

Indian Strikes Inside Pakistan  

Oh well, what a shame who wants some twinkies while these two nuclear powers have a little fight

[Nintex]

It should've been 72 million