Alsephina

Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz held a phone call Friday to discuss ways to end the war in Ukraine, according a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Uncertainty over support from Western allies has also been growing ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House next year. Germany is Ukraine’s second-biggest supporter after the US and has pledged billions of euros in additional aid.

Archive link

For the first time, Chinese scientists and their US collaborators have been able to precisely measure the age of volcanic eruptions on the far side of the moon.

Previously this was only estimated through remote sensing observations.

Two research teams led by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, based in Beijing and Guangzhou, used radiometric dating to analyse isotope decay in basalts, a type of volcanic rock brought back to Earth by China’s Chang’e-6 mission in June.

Their studies, published on Friday in journals Nature and Science, both found that the moon’s oldest and deepest crater on its far side was volcanically active around 2.8 billion years ago.

In comparison, samples returned by the Apollo, Luna and Chang’e-5 missions – all from the near side – established that lunar volcanism occurred between 4 billion and 2 billion years ago.

The Nature paper highlighted that the 2.8 billion-year age was “surprisingly young” as volcanic activities on the far side were traditionally thought to have ended much earlier. Most volcanic eruptions were associated with the near side and believed to have ceased by around 3 billion years ago.

Archive link

The Israeli attack on Iran in late October destroyed an active top secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, according to three U.S. officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official.

The strike — which targeted a site previously reported to be inactive — significantly damaged Iran's effort over the past year to resume nuclear weapons research, Israeli and U.S. officials said.

Archive link

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake thanked voters on Friday for delivering his leftist coalition a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections that repudiated establishment parties blamed for triggering an economic crisis.

Dissanayake, a self-avowed Marxist, swept September presidential elections on a promise to combat corruption and recover stolen assets, two years after a slow-motion financial crash imposed widespread hardships on the island nation.

His decision to immediately call polls and secure parliamentary backing for his agenda was vindicated on Friday, with his National People’s Power (NPP) coalition taking at least 159 seats in the 225-member assembly, exceeding a two-thirds majority.

In a sign of the magnitude of support for Dissanayake, his party won the most votes in the northern district of Jaffna, dominated by the island’s minority Tamil community, for the first time since independence from Britain in 1948.

Dissanayake, the 55-year-old son of a labourer, had been an MP for nearly 25 years and was briefly an agriculture minister but his NPP coalition held just three seats in the outgoing assembly.

He stormed to the presidency after successfully distancing himself from successive leaders blamed for steering the country to its 2022 economic crisis.

Portraits of communist luminaries including Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Friedrich Engels and Fidel Castro hang in Dissanayake’s office in the capital.

Since his rise to popularity, however, he has softened some policies, saying he believes in an open economy and is not totally opposed to privatisation.

Dissanayake had campaigned on a pledge to renegotiate a controversial US$2.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout secured by his predecessor.

But since taking office, he has resolved to maintain the existing agreement with the international lender.

The country’s main private sector lobby, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, has tacitly supported Dissanayake and his programme.

Archive link

India and China’s progress in ironing out long-standing border tensions has sparked hopes of a revival in trade ties that could open up Chinese investments in sectors such as electric vehicles (EV) and consumer electronics.

Earlier this month, India Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar noted that there was “some progress” in disengagement of troops from both sides of their border, saying it was a “welcome move” which “opens up the possibility that other steps could happen”.

Ties between India and China hit one of their lowest points following a clash between troops along the disputed Himalayan border in 2020, and relations have only begun to warm with the withdrawal of soldiers on either side of the border.

That followed an earlier agreement in October on patrolling arrangements on the border between the two countries.

India had increased scrutiny for visa applications from Chinese citizens in the wake of the border clashes, which hurt some of India’s key manufacturing firms as stricter visa rules meant specialised engineers from China could not enter the country, leading to production losses.

The two countries have not had any direct flights for four years, but there are signs that these could again resume following the easing of border tensions. India’s aviation minister said in September that both sides had discussed an early resumption of scheduled passenger flights.

“We are hoping that there will be more Chinese investments, joint ventures as well as technology transfers,” said Vinod Sharma, chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s National ICTE (Electronics hardware) Committee. “Secondly, we are hoping that China will allow exports from India of manufactured goods.”

Archive link

Israeli warplanes intensified their deadly attacks on different parts of the Syrian capital Damascus, and the Southern Suburb (Dahiyeh) in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Thursday, November 14.

The aerial attacks on Damascus targeted residential buildings in both Mazzeh and Qudsaya areas, leaving at least 15 people killed and 16 others injured, in addition to causing significant material damage to a number of buildings, according to a source in the Syrian military.

Thursday’s airstrikes on Damascus were preceded by a series of airstrikes that targeted different parts of Syria within the last couple of weeks. On Wednesday, November 13, Israeli fighter jets struck bridges on the Orontes River and roads in Al-Qusayr area in Homs countryside, near the Syrian Lebanese borders. The airstrikes inflicted great damage on the bridges and roads, which consequently became out of service, as per a report published by the Syrian Arab News Agency SANA.

On Sunday, November 10, Israeli warplanes targeted a residential building in the Sayyidah Zaynab area of Damascus, killing seven civilians including women and children. Previous airstrikes were launched by Israeli fighter jets on November 4, targeting a number of sites south of Damascus, resulting in material damages.

Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Ministry condemned the Israeli attacks in a statement issued on Thursday. “The Israeli entity’s continuation of its attacks on Syria today comes only two days after the joint Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh issued a broad condemnation of its brutal and escalating aggression on Syrian territory, and its warning of the danger of this escalation that is ravaging the region and its regional and international repercussions,” the Ministry stated.

The escalation of Israeli aggression and its expansion on different fronts has been increasing despite the mounting regional and international calls for a ceasefire and de-escalation, which indicates Israel’s total disregard of international law and its obligations. Israel insists on committing blatant violations of territorial integrity of sovereign states, due to the impunity it enjoys, and being given the greenlight by the United States.

Archive link

Archive link

Bangladesh’s Interim Government (IG) is suppressing garment workers engaged in protests over a series of demands, including wage increases and improved social conditions.

The class struggle is occurring under conditions of intense political upheaval. Mass student protests, which developed into a broader uprising in July-August, forced the ouster of Prime Minister Shiek Hasina, who fled the country.

The IG was installed by the military on August 8 and is headed by Chief Adviser Muhammed Yunus, a banker with close ties to American imperialism. Yunus’ claims to be overseeing a transition to “true democracy,” aimed at realising “social justice” after the increasingly authoritarian rule of Hasina, are belied by the brutal attacks on garment workers.

In response to protests that have continued since September, the new government has overseen a police crackdown involving regular officers, industrial cops, the notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and army personnel.

So far, these state forces have gunned down one protester, injured scores, carried out mass arrests and filed cases against over a thousand workers.

A key demand of the workers is for a major pay increase, from the current monthly minimum wage of 8,000 taka ($US67) to 22,000-25,000 taka ($184-209). They are also calling for an increase to the monthly attendance bonus, the granting of annual leave, night shift pay and an extension of maternity leave for female workers.

Other demands include the reopening of closed factories, the reinstatement of previously terminated employees, an end to harassment by management and government officials and improved workplace safety and conditions.

From last Saturday until Tuesday, garment workers at over a dozen factories in Gazipur shut down production.

Yunus is going beyond its purported duty of preparing national elections within three months of his installation, signaling that the IG will remain in office until 2026. An October article in the Hindu reported Yunus stating that “an election cannot be held before reforms are completed,” a reference to austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Archive link

Sales of Chinese cars in Russia have hit fresh records after the country became the largest export destination for the Asian nation’s automakers when sanctions forced western brands to cut ties with Moscow.

Surging in Russian sales have helped Chinese carmakers at a time when Beijing faces higher tariffs on electric vehicle exports from Washington and Brussels — while engineering a rapid change in Russian auto culture.

Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine sparked a sharp decline in sales of vehicles from the European, Korean and Japanese carmakers that previously dominated the country’s car market.

At the time of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, their brands made up 69 per cent of all sales, according to the Avtostat analytics agency. They now have a market share of just 8.5 per cent, while Chinese manufacturers’ share over the same period has risen from 9 per cent to 57 per cent.

Archive link

Archive link

South Korean intelligence officials have adopted a skeptical stance when it comes to reports from Ukraine. It’s gotten to the point where Korean intelligence officials are telling reporters to hold off on relaying reports about North Korean troops from Ukrainian officials until they receive third-party confirmation, because Ukraine makes “fake news” at the state level. This means we have to carefully consider the source of the information and the intentions behind it.

Archive link