October 10, 2022

Taiwan politicians dismiss Elon Musk's 'ill-informed and belittling' China comments

Musk, the world’s richest person, suggested giving China some control over the island to resolve the cross-strait dispute

Taiwanese politicians have dismissed comments from Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, that allowing China to have some control over the island would resolve the cross-strait dispute, urging him to respect the wishes of Taiwan’s citizens.

Musk’s suggestion to “figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable,” given in an interview with the Financial Times on Saturday, was welcomed by China’s ambassador to the US.

The ambassador, Qin Gang, said “peaceful reunification and ‘one country two systems’ are our basic principles for resolving the Taiwan question … and the best approach to realising national reunification.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/10/taiwan-elon-musk-china-special-admin-region-comments-ill-informed-and-belittling

October 7, 2022

Ukrainian troops report outages of Musk Starlink devices

Ukrainian troops have reported outages of their Starlink communication devices while fighting on the frontline, according to Ukrainian officials and soldiers.

The disruptions have hindered efforts to liberate territory from Russian forces, with some of the outages resulting in a “catastrophic” loss of communication in recent weeks, the Financial Times cited one senior Ukrainian government official as saying.

Many of the outages were reported as troops breached the frontline into Russian-controlled territory and some during pitched battles, according to the official.

They were acute in the south around the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, but also took place along the frontline in eastern Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk, the Ukrainian official said.

https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1578411903025836032

Guardian live feed

October 3, 2022

Ukraine's Ambassador to Germany tells right-wing billionaire Elon Musk to "fuck off"

Elon Musk suggests Ukraine should be "neutral" in Russia's war in Ukraine and in an approach to peace, and says Crimea is "formally part of Russia" (US/other allies recognize Crimea is Ukrainian).

Ukraine's Ambassador to Germany weighs in: "Fuck off is my very diplomatic reply"

https://twitter.com/shanvav/status/1576980106731405319

Other European leaders also voiced their opposition to Musk’s plan.

“Dear @elonmusk, when someone tries to steal the wheels of your Tesla, it doesn’t make them legal owner of the car or of the wheels. Even though they claim both voted in favour of it. Just saying,” Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda, tweeted in response.

Just in case you want to vote (I voted NO)

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000

October 1, 2022

CPAC got caught supporting russia, then tried to delete the post

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1576032417856778240

https://twitter.com/taportnj/status/1576044968162258944

https://twitter.com/themusekill/status/1576044899379470337

September 29, 2022

Finland's border guard force has confirmed that it will shut its border to Russian tourists

Finland is closing its border to Russian tourists following Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilisation order which prompted large numbers of people to flee the country.

From midnight Finnish time (9pm GMT), Russian tourists holding an EU Schengen visa will be turned away unless they have a family tie or compelling reason to stay.

Matti Pitkäniitty, head of the international affairs unit at the Finnish border guard, said each passenger seeking to enter Finland from Russia would be checked: “Why are you entering Finland? Do you have some kind of valid reason: family members? study? Some business that must be handled at the moment… And if not, then the entry is refused.”

Entry will also be permitted for humanitarian reasons, such as patients with an established relationship with Finnish doctors.

per guardian live feed

September 25, 2022

I will just leave this here as a reminder

https://twitter.com/TheRickyDavila/status/1573728944502628353

It’s insane to me that Louis DeJoy participated in election fraud in 2020 by weaponizing the USPS to lose mail in ballots and destroy vote sorting machines yet instead of being fired and prosecuted, he’s still in the exact same position to be able to do it all over again.

September 18, 2022

I had no idea The Department of Homeland security was in on the migrant con

https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1570852854575038465

DHS agents signed paperwork & put fake address in the forms, President Biden, JD, please put those agents behind bars!!!

September 16, 2022

First putin blamed nazism for invading Ukraine, now he is blaming the West

Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday said he sent Russian forces into Ukraine in February in response to the West wanting to break up Russia, Reuters is reporting.

Putin was speaking at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Discussing the war publicly for the first time since Ukraine’s dramatic counter-offensive ousted Russian troops from the Kharkiv region last week, Putin threatened continued strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, and said: “We will see how (Ukraine’s counteroffensive) ends.”

September 14, 2022

As a reminder: russia-cultivating-trump-asset-40-years-says-ex-kgb-spy

From 2021:

The KGB cultivated Donald Trump as an asset for 40 years, and he proved a highly valuable asset in repeating anti-Western Russian propaganda in the United States, a former KGB operative told The Guardian.

Yuri Shvets is a key source in "American Kompromat," a new book detailing the decades-long relationship between Trump and Russia by the journalist Craig Unger.

The book, which is based on interviews with former Russian and US operatives, details the KGB's attempts in the 1980s to cultivate dozens of unwitting businesspeople in the United States as useful Russian assets.

Shvets told The Guardian that the KGB had identified Trump, then an up-and-coming property developer, as a potential asset in the 1980s.





https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-cultivating-trump-asset-40-years-says-ex-kgb-spy-2021-1

September 13, 2022

Russian forces have continued looting as Ukrainian troops push them further east

the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in today’s daily briefing.

Officials said that on a section of the highway running north and south between Starobilsk and Luhansk, they spotted about 300 civilian vehicles, mostly with the state license plates of the Kharkiv region, heading in the direction of Luhansk. Most of these vehicles had “trailers loaded with looted property” and were being driven by Russian military.

In Polohy, a city in the Zaporizhzhia region in the south of the country, “Russian occupants break the gates of private garages, take private cars from locals,” the general staff said. Meanwhile in the Kherson region, the general staff said similar behaviour was noted in the removal of “furniture and household appliances from temporarily abandoned homes”.