Miscellaneous News

TPenglake said:

I see lots of people calling bs on this study because, "You wouldn't get that impression from English language social media sites." Well, there in lies your problem isn't it? On top of that, ask how many of those haters online actually reside in the country they claim to be representing.

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TPenglake said:

I see lots of people calling bs on this study because, "You wouldn't get that impression from English language social media sites." Well, there in lies your problem isn't it? On top of that, ask how many of those haters online actually reside in the country they claim to be representing.

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ansy1968 said:

Right who are those that commissioned the survey ? . Okay when it come to survey here in the Philippines take it a huge grain of salt especially when it was mined in Imperial Manila....lol ,Manila isn't the whole Philippine and in Mindanao were half of the population are muslin and most of the Christian living there live in dire poverty. Do you think they have the time to indulge in Geopolitics. Plus a clue, who funded the survey, when it was done in English instead of the local and regional language you know who the funder are.

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ansy1968 said:

Right who are those that commissioned the survey ? . Okay when it come to survey here in the Philippines take it a huge grain of salt especially when it was mined in Imperial Manila....lol ,Manila isn't the whole Philippine and in Mindanao were half of the population are muslin and most of the Christian living there live in dire poverty. Do you think they have the time to indulge in Geopolitics. Plus a clue, who funded the survey, when it was done in English instead of the local and regional language you know who the funder are.

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vincent said:

Dude, give up trying to convince us Pinoys are friendly toward China. The only ones that matters are the elites and oligarchs, and they are definitely not friendly toward China. What the rest of the peons think is totally irrelevant.

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coolgod said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1869986946031988780

The real fun begins in Europe when Afd comes into power within the next 10 years

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resistance said:

Imagine how will musk bring AfD to rule Germany next years. Gonna be fun.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1855566698931499490

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House Democrats say GOP caved to Musk in funding bill, protecting his China interests​

• House Democrats Jim McGovern and Rosa DeLauro accused Republican colleagues of bending to Elon Musk’s demands in sinking a bipartisan funding bill.
• Congress passed a stopgap funding bill instead on Saturday, but discarded a provision to screen and regulate U.S. investments in China.
• The scrapped provision “would have made it easier to keep cutting-edge AI and quantum computing tech — as well as jobs — in America,” McGovern wrote on X.

House Democrats Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut say their Republican colleagues in Congress caved to the demands of Elon Musk, sinking a bipartisan government funding bill that would have regulated U.S. investments in China.

Congress passed a separate stopgap funding bill over the weekend, averting a government shutdown.

In a series of posts on X, McGovern said more could have been accomplished. The scrapped provision “would have made it easier to keep cutting-edge AI and quantum computing tech — as well as jobs — in America,” he wrote. “But Elon had a problem.”

Tesla, run by Musk, is the only foreign automaker to operate a factory in China without a local joint venture. Tesla also built a battery plant down the street from its Shanghai car factory this year, and aims to develop and sell self-driving vehicle technology in China.

“His bottom line depends on staying in China’s good graces,” McGovern wrote about Musk. “He wants to build an AI data center there too — which could endanger U.S. security. He’s been bending over backwards to ingratiate himself with Chinese leaders.”

SpaceX, Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor, has reportedly withheld its Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan at the request of Chinese and Russian leaders. Taiwan is a self-ruling democracy that Beijing claims as its territory. Taiwan’s status is one of the biggest flashpoints in U.S.-China relations.

DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, wrote in a letter to Congress on Friday that Musk needs “Chinese government approvals for his company’s projects in the country.” It’s concerning, that Musk “has ingratiated himself with Chinese Communist Party leadership,” she wrote.

In the letter, DeLauro referred to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO as “President” Musk, alluding to the fact that the world’s richest person began railing against the prior funding bill on Wednesday, before President-elect Donald Trump came out with a statement of his own.

Trump had wanted the GOP to sink the bill, and issue a new one that would raise the debt ceiling so he could avoid that fight during the start of his second term in office. The stopgap funding bill, which President Joe Biden signed on Saturday, did not include the two-year suspension of the U.S. debt limit that Trump was seeking.

Musk responded to DeLauro’s concerns by calling her an “awful creature” in a post on X.

After acquiring Twitter in 2022, Musk rebranded it X and used it to help propel Trump back into the White House, becoming a close adviser and major backer to the incoming president along the way.

Musk contributed $277 million to the Trump campaign and other Republican causes during the 2024 cycle, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Since the election in November, Musk has become a nearly constant presence at Trump’s side, including in meetings with foreign leaders.

Trump appointed Musk to co-lead a group that’s not yet formed, but will be tasked with finding ways to cut regulations, personnel and budgets.

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Congress passed a stopgap funding bill instead on Saturday, but discarded a provision to screen and regulate U.S. investments in China.

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Trump suggests he wants to buy Greenland​

President-elect Trump again floated buying Greenland as he named PayPal co-founder Ken Howery as his pick for U.S. ambassador to Denmark on Sunday.

The big picture: Trump said during his first administration that he was looking into the U.S. buying Greenland and canceled a state trip to Denmark after Danish officials said the world's largest island that's not a continent was not for sale.

Context: Greenland is an autonomous territory that's part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

Driving the news: "For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity," Trump said in a

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to Truth Social on Howery.

• "Ken will do a wonderful job in representing the interests of the United States."
• Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to Axios' request for further details on the president-elect's plans for Greenland.

Zoom out: Trump's comments on Greenland come after he demanded Panamanian authorities lower fees for U.S. ships to transit the Panama Canal or return its control to the United States.

Background: The U.S. has on several occasions since 1867 considered or attempted to buy Greenland.

• Greenland is part of the continent of North America, but it has close geopolitical ties to Europe and it has received EU funding as it is classed as an Overseas Country and Territory associated with the bloc via Denmark.

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"For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,"

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Fighters from Myanmar civil war aggravate bitter ethnic conflict in India​

IMPHAL, India, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Indian militant groups that took refuge in Myanmar and fought in its civil war have been streaming back across the border to Manipur state this year, Indian security officers said, inflaming the bitter 19-month ethnic conflict there with weapons and battle-hardened cadres.
This has led to an increase in violence between Manipur's dominant and mostly Hindu Meitei community and the mainly Christian Kuki tribes - a conflict that critics say is the biggest law-and-order failure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 11-year-old government. Since May 2023, some 260 people have been killed in the fighting and more than 60,000 displaced.

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Nine Indian military and police officers who spoke to Reuters, plus several politicians and rebel sources in Myanmar, described a conflict that is spreading to new areas as militants from the rival groups come across the border to Manipur.
Fighters are equipped with more sophisticated weapons, including rocket launchers, and 20 people were killed in fighting in November alone. In response, the federal government announced it was deploying 10,000 more soldiers in Manipur, taking the total number of troops to nearly 67,000 in addition to the 30,000-strong police force.

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The escalation has been accompanied by an increase in crime – mainly extortion and illegal drugs trade – to fund the weapons and operations of the rival factions, the police and military officers said.
"The insurgents who we had controlled about 10 years ago are gaining relevance again," said Yumnam Joykumar Singh, a former Manipur police chief and the state's deputy chief minister between 2017 and 2020.

"Some of them are coming back from Myanmar, some have already come," said Singh, a Meitei, who led operations against Meitei militants in Manipur as a hardline chief of police between 2007 and 2012.

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Security officers said Meitei groups have been fighting on the side of the ruling junta in Myanmar's civil war and an estimated 2,000 of their cadres had been camping in Myanmar's Sagaing region, just across the border from Manipur, as of December.

They have fought anti-junta rebels like the People's Defence Force - Kalay (PDF-K) and the Kuki National Army - Burma in Sagaing, Kachin and Chin areas of northern Myanmar, Indian security officers and tribal leaders said.
The Kukis, meanwhile, have support from the Kachin rebels and have bought weapons from Myanmar's semi-autonomous Wa state, according to three Indian officers, several tribal leaders and a PDF-K source in Myanmar.

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Some Meitei groups had operated from camps within Myanmar with the support of the military, but were now scattered along the frontier and going back into Manipur, said Sui Khar, vice chairman of the rebel Chin National Front, an anti-junta rebel outfit that operates in Chin state.
"They closely collaborated with the Burmese army in operations against us," he told Reuters in a telephone call.
The Indian military and police officers said it was difficult to assess the number of militants who have returned to Manipur.
But more than 100 Meitei insurgents, including some intercepted by Indian authorities at the Myanmar border, were arrested in Manipur last year and more than 200 this year, according to a security officer and government data reviewed by Reuters.

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About 50 Kuki insurgents were arrested in the same period, the data shows.
"Manipur was a problem, and now you have the Myanmar problem also coming in," Indian Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi said in October. "The battle lines are getting hardened".
In February, India announced plans to fence its 1,600 km (995 mile) border with Myanmar.

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Rival fighters are now equipped with rocket launchers, machine guns, sniper and assault rifles, including foreign-made M16s, M4A1s and AK-47s, according to seizure announcements by the military and the Manipur police.
While many of the weapons being used in Manipur were looted from state armouries in the initial months of the conflict, the more sophisticated weapons were brought in from Myanmar mostly this year, the officers said.
"These are two distinct conflicts, one for freedom from military rule, and another an internal ethnic conflict largely inflicted by one side on another," said Gautam Mukhopadhaya, India's ambassador to Myanmar between 2013 and 2016.

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"With raging conflicts going on side by side, it can be assumed that some weapons transfers and trade in arms takes place."
About 1,500 illegally imported arms are estimated to be in Manipur's Meitei-dominated valley area, and about 2,000 in the hills where most Kukis live, the Indian officers said, based on details from arrested insurgents.
These arms are in addition to about 5,000 government weapons that were stolen by Meitei groups, and about 1,000 by Kukis, the officers said.
Authorities have since recovered 3,000 weapons, including around 2,000 of those stolen, Manipur government officials told media in November.
Besides extortion, the security officers said some of the funding for the arms comes from illegal poppy plantations, which the state government has attempted to curb in recent years.

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"Poppy farms are in the hills, but processing also happens in the valley, and we have seen that field labour can be from any community, protected by armed men," said Homen Thangjam, a political science professor at the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University.
"Who pays them to grow is a mystery."

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US man gifted drone to Manipur ultras: Foreign agent or trouble-making evangelist?​

American evangelist Daniel Stephen Courney faces backlash after a purported video shows him distributing drones and bulletproof jackets to the Kuki militants in Manipur. This sparked concerns over his controversial activities and accusations of stoking communal tensions in India.​

Decode Politics: Manipur says ‘Protected Area Regime’ back after 13 years. What it means​

Puts curbs on entry of foreign nationals to areas or states concerned. The Manipur government has held alleged illegal immigration from Myanmar as one of the prime factors responsible for the ongoing conflict in the state​

Classified (Eurofighter Typhoon) jet specs leaked on War Thunder – again​

EXCLUSIVE – The War Thunder forums are at the centre of yet another controversy following the leak of classified documents related to the Eurofighter Typhoon’s radar systems.

The discussion, which revolved around the scanning capabilities of the CAPTOR radar, led to a user posting restricted material in an attempt to prove their argument.

War Thunder, a free-to-play online combat game developed by Gaijin Entertainment, was launched in 2012, with development and operations now spread across Europe, including offices in Germany, Hungary, and Cyprus, and a team of 200 employees.

While the material was swiftly removed and the user suspended, this latest incident has reignited concerns about the repeated sharing of sensitive information on the platform.

A forum community manager addressed the situation, reminding users of the risks and responsibilities involved:

“I will take this opportunity to again remind everyone here, please do not, under any circumstances, try to post, share any sources unless you are 100% certain they are legally declassified and publicly safe for use. We will never handle or use them, and all it does is actively harm any possible future changes being possible by trying to use them. Do not do it. No good will ever come from it for you or the vehicle you are trying to post for.”

The user was warned before sharing the documents, but it appears they proceeded regardless, resulting in the immediate removal of the material. The Italian Ministry of Defence, whose documents may have been cited, has previously stated that manuals like these are excluded from public access for both security and commercial reasons.

A Worrying Pattern​

This is not the first time War Thunder forums have faced issues with classified leaks. Previous incidents have involved technical details of the Challenger 2 tank, Leclerc main battle tank, and Chinese ammunition systems. Each case has underscored the platform’s struggle to balance enthusiasm for military accuracy with the protection of sensitive information.

Radar Controversy​

The CAPTOR radar was at the heart of the debate. Discussions centred on comparisons between its mechanically scanning (CAPTOR-M) and electronically scanning (CAPTOR-E) variants, particularly the latter’s ability to reduce scanning times significantly. Players disagreed over the exact technical capabilities, prompting the ill-advised sharing of restricted data.

Moderators have clarified that any claims based on classified information will not be entertained and have reminded users that no in-game content will be adjusted based on unauthorised sources.

Larger Implications​

The repeated leaks from these forums pose broader concerns, particularly regarding the unauthorised dissemination of restricted information in public spaces. Defence analysts warn that such actions can carry serious legal consequences and even impact the operational security of military platforms.

A contact in the defence industry, obviously wishing to remain anonymous, told me last night, “These leaks might seem harmless to some, but they can have real-world consequences. Sharing restricted information, even in a gaming context, risks undermining the security of platforms and could lead to serious legal repercussions for those involved and potential harm to operational effectiveness and safety”.

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The discussion, which revolved around the scanning capabilities of the CAPTOR radar, led to a user posting restricted material in an attempt to prove their argument.

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