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Cake day: November 19th, 2023

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  • Oscar Jenkins, 33, was convicted in a Russian-controlled court in occupied eastern Ukraine on Friday of fighting in an armed conflict as a mercenary.

    Mr Jenkins, a teacher from Melbourne, was captured last December in the Luhansk region.

    Prosecutors said he arrived in Ukraine in February 2024, alleging he was paid between 600,000 and 800,000 rubles (£5,504 and £7,339) a month to take part in military operations against Russian troops.

    The article seems to claim that this guy is a mercenary, but someone in the comments is claiming that this guy is not a mercenary because he is a member of the UAF’s foreign legion. I don’t know if there is any additional context here that I am missing.




  • why would the US care about gaza

    Petrodollars, settler colonialism and imperial control. Israel and the Gulf monarchies are the linchpin of the petrodollar, aka the American government’s ability to run a massive trade deficit over decades with minimal inflation, something no other country can do. This gives the American government unlimited spending power (for its military).

    There is also the geopolitical aspect of dividing the middle east, figuratively and literally, as well as having a forward base there to put pressure on Europe, Russia and China.

    Finally, a huge number of “israelis” are really just American settlers. From the standpoint of the American bourgeoise, having a settler colony with a racialised underclass is very profitable, as this underclass (the Palestinians) are easily exploited workers. Furthermore, the American firms can test weapons on Gaza and their partnership with companies in the occupation yield them economic benefits.


  • Tbh, I’m not a big fan of attempts to create a BRICS currency either. The economic conditions across the BRICS countries are too different for a common currency to be adopted for domestic transactions. And if this common currency was only limited to international transactions, you would still recreate the problems of the gold standard (a hard limit on the availability of money for transactions).

    I think the correct approach is to facilitate both easier transactions in local currencies and cross-border bartering of commodities. The former allows countries to take on a level of “debt” through net imports according to their needs, the latter allows material production to dominate financial constraints.