Miscellaneous News

According to a (WSJ) report released on 4 February, Washington is contemplating a renewal of sanctions against Chinese surveillance firms, which WSJ says Iran relies on to ‘crack down on protests.’
This is despite the fact that Iran has developed its own ‘sophisticated’ surveillance system, according to a recent report by US media outlet, the .
“US authorities are in advanced discussions on the sanctions … and have zeroed in on Tiandy Technologies Co., a surveillance-equipment maker based in the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin whose products have been sold to units of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” WSJ quoted officials as saying.
The report says that Beijing’s customs data shows record that filming equipment to the Islamic Republic increased significantly in 2022, around the same time protests and began raging across the country following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September.
“Iran’s security forces are now planning to use Chinese technologies to detect and punish women who don’t wear the veil,” the report claims, citing an unnamed Iranian official and advisor to the IRGC.
The US State Department has declined a request for comment on the possibility of sanctions against Chinese surveillance firms, but said that it would not hesitate to hold “persons and entities accountable” for endorsing ‘Iranian human rights violations,’ according to a statement emailed to WSJ.
The US Treasury Department and China’s Tiandy Technologies Co. have both also declined requests for comment.
The report comes in the wake of a significant decline in protests across Iran, as admitted recently by a number of US media outlets, including WSJ, which claimed on that the protests have mainly been replaced by “quiet acts of rebellion,” referring to premeditated, against members of Iran’s security forces – which became a trend quickly into the protest movement.
Iran has repeatedly condemned western powers and their allies, including and , for attempting to the country through misinformation campaigns and aggressive covert activities.
The 4 February report by WSJ also comes on the heels of a planned trip by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to China, which was cancelled over an alleged ‘Chinese spy balloon’ that was hovering over nuclear sites in the state of Montana in the last two days.
The Chinese balloon was shot down by the military on the east coast of the US on 4 February.
In a statement, Beijing said that the balloon was a ‘civilian airship’ used for meteorological purposes, which mistakenly and regrettably entered US airspace.

It figures they'd pull "the balloon was totally high tech advanced stuff and it is an intel coup for us rather than China" card to save face, like they accuse China of doing all the time.

Stierlitz said:

Washington is contemplating a renewal of sanctions against Chinese surveillance firms, which WSJ says Iran relies on to ‘crack down on protests.’

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This is the kind of stuff why I always argue against those who say China should appease the US when it came to the Ukraine War to avoid getting sanctions on Chinese companies. Its a red herring as the US wants to fight China and will find any excuse it can, made up or not, regardless of what China does, so might as well go all in.

pmc said:

without Mideast support countries like India and Turkey cannot increase trade with Russia in such short period of time. Its ironic that countries like India and Turkey whose historic connections to Anglo-Saxon and Germanic world are now in this situation. you can add Wagner group that also backed by Mideast wealth. Its prominence came from Africa operations taking advantage of people in in former Soviet and Eastern Europe who had language and skills in Africa.

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This is at best a temporary solution because all India has done is offload the evasion problem onto the UAE. The UAE is a vassal of the US and Washington can put an end to this trade with one phone call.

What India should actually do is shift its purchases of Russian oil to a financial network that the US cannot influence. The only one with the scale, reliability, and liquidity to do this is the Chinese network. Unpalatable though this may be to India, this is the only choice it has if it wants to continue buying discounted Russian oil.

ZeEa5KPul said:

This is at best a temporary solution because all India has done is offload the evasion problem onto the UAE. The UAE is a vassal of the US and Washington can put an end to this trade with one phone call.

What India should actually do is shift its purchases of Russian oil to a financial network that the US cannot influence. The only one with the scale, reliability, and liquidity to do this is the Chinese network. Unpalatable though this may be to India, this is the only choice it has if it wants to continue buying discounted Russian oil.

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India is still using the RMB, but it makes sense for internal political reasons to also use the Emirati Dinar. Many countries and international businesses are quitley switching some reserves and interactions to the RMB.

ZeEa5KPul said:

This is at best a temporary solution because all India has done is offload the evasion problem onto the UAE. The UAE is a vassal of the US and Washington can put an end to this trade with one phone call.

What India should actually do is shift its purchases of Russian oil to a financial network that the US cannot influence. The only one with the scale, reliability, and liquidity to do this is the Chinese network. Unpalatable though this may be to India, this is the only choice it has if it wants to continue buying discounted Russian oil.

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i am sure US pressure can shift much more trade into shadows like more Gold and diamonds. but fundamentally it cannot change these relationships. Russia has transitioned itself out of that Germanic Kar Marx ideology that make corruption less and governance stable and higher quality. The first indication was Putin giving importance to Gold . The production in year 2000 was about 180 tons per year and he indirectly mention in 2005 during meeting that Russia potential is much higher. since foreign reserves of Russia not falling despite lower energy prices, and huge third party imports like foreign vehicles (Vladivostok port alone is 25k vehicles per month) we can assume that they have substantial buffer in precious metals.
when you want to publish some thing for Arabic audience you mention prominently that your debt has decreased. every culture is different not many outside understand what elites of that culture thinks inside.

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Russia reveals a remarkable economic result in 2022​

In the past year 2022 as a whole, Russia's external debt declined by $100.4 billion, or 20.8%, according to data published by the Rssian Central Bank on its website.

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Stryker said:

I suggested something similar previously. Cuba is an ideal location to place missiles directly aimed at the heart of the continental US. Russia & China should together push Cuba for such an agreement thereby sealing a formal military alliance between the three countries, perhaps after Russia is done cleaning house with Ukraine and US has announced placement of IRBMs on Japanese islands. That's a valid response, perhaps North Korean territory could also be used to place even more missiles thereby guaranteeing retaliation against any and all vassals who are planning to get stupid.

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This time deliver the missile to Cuba via airballoon so US cannot intercept it.

Eventine said:

So I guess Rubio, Senate head of intelligence with close links to the CIA, finally got word from the Pentagon that "it was a weather balloon" and is now trying to change the narrative. The spin that China sent a balloon to test the US is just funny.

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The balloon most likely unintentionally drifted into the US, but looking at how things are turning out I think Force Majeure is on the side of China.

The balloon thing perfectly shows how easy is for countries to go to war. People think that countries are led by wise leaders but when mass hysteria starts flowing through the population (with the help of demagogues), there is only one result in the end, war.

The decade 2020-2030 most closely resembles the pre-WW1 atmosphere than pre-WW2. If you open a history book and read about how was the political-social climate during that period, you will find disturbing similarities between then and now.

The maniac frenzy by elites and the population to wage war against their opponents, the belief on the invincibility of their army, the belief that they will be victorious, the grand prize for winning such a war etc is not only just shared by the West nowadays, but actually its even in higher degree now in some aspects.

A cool thought experiment, all this hysteria happened with Democrats in charge, can someone imagine what would have happened if there were the ultra-hawkish Republican in power? People when reading a WW1 history books always found it absurd how that world war started and couldn't comprehend it. Now living through this balloon clown show should be illuminating for those folks.

In conclusion, the future direction of US-China relations points to only one way, down. Whenever you will think relations have finally hit rock-bottom, every month they will hit new lows. This process will continue until the irreconcilable differences are resolved and given the nature of them, war is most likely than not, going to be the way to solve them

getready said:

Notice how Western state media usually have china threatens/china slams/china bullies in their headline. The Western audience continually gets indoctrinated that china is aggressive and a threat. Then its how they get conditioned to be prepared for war with China. And it's to be expected and normal cuz china is the bad guy.

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Maybe that is a way to exit the Ukraine, because they had to take on China, a much bigger problem.

Wasn't that one of the rationales to vacate Afghanistan? That their work was done there and they had to focus on China.

The other details of those wars, that does not matter because they have to focus on China.

Maybe that was what this whole balloon thing was about. Distract the public, then quietly disengage from Ukraine. People don't like losers.

Seems most country are quiet about the issue and just watching the meltdown in the US.

I wonder if maybe the pentagon rather keep these events quiet is that now you can have state actors , non state actors, or trolls releasing balloons to troll the US into expending resource on them.