Miscellaneous News

vincent

vincent

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Phead128 said:
For military ToT, the Ukraine war has forced Putin's hand to be more generous with ToT that otherwise. It's good to have military ToT cooperation with Russia and one day buy Chinese military equipment directly. Imagine an Fujian-class carrier with J-35E in Sevastapol port.
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Russkies need to get ships with decent air defence capabilities, like 054A first.
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Chevalier said:
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Epstein and Weinstein would have been executed long before they could rape all those girls.
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Yes Canada does nothing for their citizen here believing the Chinese lie but they go up to bat defending the two Michaels being charge for spying which then one of the Michaels admits Canadian espionage was indeed happening.
 
FriedButter

FriedButter

Colonel
Registered Member
Not that long ago, the UAE left a very grumpy German FM on the tarmac for half an hour. Arabs seem to be trolling and ghosting western officials quite a lot.

MBS canceled UK trip before welcoming Putin – FT​

Saudi Arabia scrapped plans for Mohammed bin Salman to visit London earlier this month, days before he hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Riyadh, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing UK government officials.

London and Riyadh had been in negotiations about a potential visit of the Crown Prince, who is also known as MBS, for months already. UK officials said the two sides had been working towards December 3 as a possible date, but the plans were abruptly shelved last week.

Instead, MBS hosted Putin in Riyadh on Wednesday, amid the Russian president’s one-day tour of the region – his first trip to the Middle East since the beginning of the conflict with Ukraine in February 2022.

Senior UK officials and MPs were alarmed by the proximity of the Crown Prince’s visit to Britain which was apparently canceled and Putin’s Middle East tour. Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith described the development to FT as “astonishing,” and the apparent postponement as a “snub.”

Another senior Tory MP, Robert Courts, said the postponement of the visit is “a concern because it suggests a UK diplomatic failure in the face of a coordinated diplomatic offensive by Putin.”

“The UK should urgently review the resources and strategy behind its foreign and defense policy to prevent the slide of states towards our strategic competitors,” he added.

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the UK, Prince Khalid bin Bandar, however, denied any connection between the canceled visit and the Russian president’s trip, insisting that “anyone familiar with the UK-Saudi relationship will know that the suggestion of a snub is nonsense.”

“The relationship is as strong as it has ever been and will remain so. Those wishing to interpret things differently are sorely mistaken,” he told FT.

The UK Foreign Office neither confirmed nor denied the postponement when reached by FT for comment, with its spokesperson effectively dodging the question. “It is not for the UK to comment on the diplomatic engagements of other countries. We work closely with Saudi Arabia across a range of areas, including on providing support to Ukraine and addressing the current crisis in Israel,” the spokesperson said.
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Putin announces 2024 presidential bid​

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that he will seek reelection. Should he win, it will be his fifth term as head of state.

The presidential election will be held between March 15 and March 17, 2024. The winner will be inaugurated in early May.

Putin made his remarks at a ceremony where he awarded Hero of Russia medals to servicemen who had taken part in the military operation against Ukraine.
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S

supersnoop

Major
Registered Member
Aniah said:
My favorite was when apple released their self repair kits for thier iphones and macs at the same price it would cost to send them back to apple for repairs. It's like they don't even hide the fact they are scamming people. :D
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I've mucked around with computers all my life, so I feel compelled to comment on this.
I like both PC and Apple platforms for different reasons.

Apple as a total environment is superior. Everything is working out of the box. This has been true for many years. You plug in a digital camera (back when those were a thing) and it downloads into the computer.

You plug into a PC and you have to download the drivers or some other nonsense bloatware from the manufacturer, it's annoying. That being said, you want to fix something? You can usually just go to the local DIY shop and pick up a part. (Actually this was possible for Macs 10 years ago. I added extra 8GB DDR3 and a SATA SSD to a MacBook that got another 5 years out of it.)

The RAM is soldered onto the package now, so what choice do you have? It's literally buying another kind of CPU, only the higher performance models offer the extra memory controllers.

To me it is not a scam, you are paying for a certain level of integration. Is it worth it? If you are technically inclined, probably not. If you are just an average person, it can be.
 
P

pmc

Major
Registered Member
Sardaukar20 said:
Excellent. I think the big statement here by Putin is that Russia is moving away from the buy-sell military relationship with China to co-development. It's a type of acknowledgement, that China has advanced military technology that Russia desires. For obvious reasons, Russia doesn't want to buy Chinese weapons directly. So the best way forward is to co-develop stuff with China.

So for example, China and Russia might wanna co-develop a new heavy HALE drone. China has the expertise, while Russia would want the ToT, and manufacturing know-how. It would be nice if the cooperation could also extend to major naval vessels and nuclear submarines. Russia needs newer capital ships, and China could use an additional boost in nuclear submarine tech. Since there is that AUKUS deal by the other side already, such a deal not that unthinkable.

P.S.: In my opinion they should insert a special clause in any co-development deals between China and Russia. No sales or ToT allowed to any 3rd countries that have problems with China or Russia. No matter how friendly they are to either of them. So no sales or ToT allowed to India, Vietnam, PH, Turkey, Ukraine, or any other NATO nations or partners. Ideally, these co-developed technologies should only stay between Russia and China only.
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Russia has this HALE radar UAV project but it is not replacement of network of bases or large aircraft that gather emissions.
This Putin trip with Su-35 to UAE and Saudi they said they are safe countries but there others. meaning that air defense in that area is controlled by US and accident can easily happen. US navy is protected by land bases and P8. You just cannot send ships to Mideast thinking it will have standard alone same capability as US ships. Shoigu wants accelerated production Tu-160M, A-100, further improved range IL-76 and that enhance An-124 fleet. They indirectly hinted once that this Tu-160M2 will also function like HALE drone and P8 but that link i cannot find. I dont think S-70 with stealth feature wants to use as HALE drone. why you need capital ships when almost all cruise missile launches happened from bombers. Co development only happens when there is common outlook.

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In the VKS, the drone will interact with the A-50 and A-100 long-range radar detection aircraft. In addition, the device is adapted to provide radio communications, perform patrol tasks and monitor ice conditions. According to experts, Helios-RLD can become part of the Russian air defense system and be actively used in the Arctic.
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The high flight performance characteristics of the UAV and the large radius of use provided by the satellite communication system allow it to perform radar patrol and surveillance tasks.
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S

supersnoop

Major
Registered Member
FriedButter said:
2TB SSD for $600 USD from Apple? This is just straight copium.
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There is always premium from the manufacturer. Buy 2TB direct from Dell or Lenovo and the cost is quite similar.

The difference is that most windows laptops have an NVMe slot, but Apple does not.

Then it comes back to my point, if you are comfortable with saving the $400 by doing it yourself, then you probably aren't considering Apple in the first place.
 
FriedButter

FriedButter

Colonel
Registered Member
supersnoop said:
Then it comes back to my point, if you are comfortable with saving the $400 by doing it yourself, then you probably aren't considering Apple in the first place.
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Of course the Apple fan boys resort to the “filthy peasant” attitude when faced with legitimate criticism. I can only dread about how much glee you had when Apple started soldering in their SSD to engage in further anti consumer practices.

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Just a matter of time before AfD gets outlawed

AfD designated ‘extremist’ in third German region​

Authorities in the German region of Saxony have designated the local branch of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an extremist group. The move follows similar decisions in Thuringia and Sachsen-Anhalt, while the party is accused of being a “suspected case” of right-wing extremism at the federal level.

The AfD registered 18.4% of the vote in the Hesse regional election in October, its best ever performance in a western German state, and far ahead of its rivals in the country’s ruling ‘traffic light’ coalition. It has also enjoyed growing support in its traditional eastern strongholds, with a recent Spiegel poll putting it in first place with 32% of the vote in the former German Democratic Republic.

Critics have accused the AfD of pursuing xenophobic and anti-Muslim policies, accusations that the party denies.

On Friday, the president of the Saxon branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Dirk-Martin Christian, stated that “there are no more doubts as to the right-wing extremist orientation of AfD Saxony.” The authorities reached their conclusion after monitoring the party’s local section closely for the past four years.

The legal status means that the BfV can now deploy surveillance and intelligence means to gather information about the AfD’s activities without restriction.

The security service further claimed that the organization “pursues an anti-constitutional agenda,” citing statements by senior members of the Saxony AfD branch. Christian in particular referenced the AfD branch’s stance on immigration, which he characterized as “so-called ethno-pluralism.”

“According to [the AfD’s position], the acquisition of German citizenship would be determined exclusively by ethnic-biological as well as cultural criteria,” the official claimed.

Christian also accused Saxon AfD leaders of publicly defaming migrants, especially Muslims.

In addition, the AfD branch was accused of using veiled anti-Semitic cliches and engaging in the “general vilification of our democracy” by “publicly defam[ing] state institutions as well as their representatives.”

The AfD garnered 27.5% of the vote during the last regional election in Saxony in 2019.

Following an unprecedentedly strong showing in regional elections in the state of Hesse and Bavaria in October, the AFD’s co-leader Alice Weidel proclaimed that the political force was “no longer an eastern phenomenon, but has become a major all-German party.”
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The legal status means that the BfV can now deploy surveillance and intelligence means to gather information about the AfD’s activities without restriction.
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