Trove of surveillance data challenges what we thought we knew about location tracking tools, who they target and how far they have spread

...

Most countries have a legal mandate to carry out domestic phone network surveillance. The First Wap archive demonstrates, however, how phone network connections can be leveraged to allow tracking all over the world, without authorisation from the targeted networks.

In recent years, a number of investigations have explored the ways in which surveillance companies gain access to phone networks to enable this type of tracking. Lighthouse and its partners have previously written about how SS7 abuses were linked to the murder of a reporter in Mexico and a crackdown on an activist in Congo, and how they were enabled via leasing of Global Titles.

How First Wap Tracks Phones Around the World - Lighthouse Reports

From telecom protocols to a 1.5 million row dataset, here’s how we uncovered the reach and tactics of a mercenary phone-tracking company

^{Lighthouse Reports}

Top U.S. officials on Wednesday blasted China's major expansion of rare earth export controls as a threat to global supply chains, but said Beijing could still change course and avoid steps by Washington to decouple from the world's second-largest economy.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told a press conference that China's new export restrictions were a "global supply-chain power grab" and the U.S. and its allies would not accept the restrictions, but he and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stressed that Washington did not want to escalate the conflict, which has roiled financial markets and sent U.S.-China relations into a tailspin.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-officials-blast-chinas-actions-rare-earths-urge-beijing-back-down-2025-10-15/

The Kiel Institute shared data on the volumes of foreign aid to the Kyiv regime. The authors indignantly note that military aid decreased in July and August despite NATO introducing the "List of Priority Needs of Ukraine" initiative. At the same time, financial and humanitarian aid remained at the same level. It should be recalled that Ukraine's budget depends on direct cash injections from the Western overseers of the project. And, as can be seen, despite all the difficulties within the EU, they consistently transfer funds.

As for military aid, the article notes that the US has stopped reporting arms deliveries since the beginning of the year (note that this does not mean they have stopped). Meanwhile, the Europeans, who have taken on this burden, managed to deliver more equipment in the first half of 2025 than in 2022-2024. However, this momentum ran out after six months where deliveries fell by 57%, and the average monthly figure was 43% of the levels of the first six months.

The following factors should be taken into account here: stockpiles are empty, arms production is proceeding at an extremely slow pace despite all the "accelerations." As a result, the Armed Forces of Ukraine receive a "subsistence minimum" in terms of equipment and ammunition, but thanks to a significant numerical superiority, they hold the front from collapsing. And in Europe, it is well understood that there are still very, very many Ukrainians. Next year, the mobilization age will likely be lowered, which means there is little point in investing money in expanding production. European officials realize that the main asset is the boundless Ukrainian mobilization resource, which is obedient and undemanding in maintenance.

Ukraine Support Tracker: Military aid falls sharply despite new NATO initiative

Military aid to Ukraine saw a sharp decline in July and August 2025, despite the introduction of NATO’s Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative.

^{Kiel Institut}

Indonesia’s top defense official said Wednesday that Jakarta will acquire at least 42 Chinese-made Chengdu J-10C fighter jets, marking the country’s first non-Western aircraft purchase deal.

Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin told reporters in the capital, Jakarta, that Indonesia would soon buy fighter jets from China as part of a plan to modernize its military. Analysts said the deal could touch regional sensitivities and have geopolitical implications.

The plan to buy the J-10s was first disclosed last month by defense ministry spokesperson Brig. Gen. Frega Wenas. Local media had reported that the Indonesian Air Force was still reviewing the Chinese-made fighter jets to ensure their acquisition would effectively strengthen Indonesia’s air defense capabilities.

https://apnews.com/article/indonesia-china-fighter-jets-purchase-deal-fd8fda417ddbb059d7e3be917d1e9fb1

Dozens of reporters turned in access badges and exited the Pentagon on Wednesday rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work, pushing journalists who cover the American military further from the seat of its power. The nation’s leadership called the new rules “common sense” to help regulate a “very disruptive” press.

News outlets were nearly unanimous in rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release.

Many of the reporters waited to leave together at a 4 p.m. deadline set by the Defense Department to get out of the building. As the hour approached, boxes of documents lined a Pentagon corridor and reporters carried chairs, a copying machine, books and old photos to the parking lot from suddenly abandoned workspaces. Shortly after 4, about 40 to 50 journalists left together after handing in badges.

https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-press-access-hegseth-trump-restrictions-5d9c2a63e4e03b91fc1546bb09ffbf12

This is going to be the final false ceasefire.
The Israelis have plans to finish off all the returning citizens soon.

I am not pro Israel. I despise the false Jews and the Rothschild's, Rockefeller's, as well as similar groups, and families that fund them.

This is just a warning. They are about to finish those people off soon. Do not fall for the ceasefire it's not real. You are in a war and you must fight the enemy or you all will not survive.

If you don't like my post, delete it, but don't ban me because I'm actually trying to help

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/15/bill-ackman-donates-to-anti-mamdani-effort-00609490

cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/6420742

cross-posted from: ibbit.at/post/80984

This editorial by the La Jornada editorial board was published in the October 13, 2025 edition of La Jornada*, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.*

The atypical rains recorded last week in several areas of the country have left nearly fifty people dead and a still-unquantified population in a situation of extreme vulnerability, with partial or total property losses, and without shelter or food. Initially, the situation was aggravated by more than a hundred road closures on the federal highway network due to landslides, mudslides, fallen trees, and flooded rivers. Although the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications, and Transportation (SICT) has already resolved the vast majority of them, it is inevitable to assume that the impacts of the rainfall were similar or worse on state roads, rural roads, and urban and rural roads in various localities.

The dozen federal entities and nearly 150 municipalities that have suffered moderate to severe impacts present us with the evidence of a sudden and unforeseeable national emergency, which requires a response commensurate with the circumstances. The federal government has certainly responded promptly. President Claudia Sheinbaum has coordinated emergency assistance for those affected, both remotely and in person in the disaster areas.

It would be unfair to ignore the efforts made in this regard by the security cabinet, which includes the Ministries of the Interior, National Defense, the Mexican Navy, and the aforementioned SICT (National Commission of the Interior), in addition to the Federal Electricity Commission, the National Water Commission, Petróleos Mexicanos, and other agencies. These efforts include providing aid to the affected population, repairing the road network, restoring electricity and drinking water, and assisting in the search for and locating individuals. State and municipal authorities in the affected regions are also participating in this effort.

But the magnitude of the damage also demands the solidarity of the entire country’s society, regardless of political affiliations and hatreds and regionalisms. It is hoped that generosity will be manifested in volunteer brigades organized in the disaster zones themselves, and in assistance to any of the aid collection centers; the most urgent immediate priority is to deliver medical supplies, medicines, food, and cleaning and personal hygiene items to the affected population.

The spirit of solidarity that characterizes our country has come to light in every tragic circumstance, both abroad and at home, and today, in the face of the tragedy that has befallen hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens, it is time for it to be expressed once again.

Molte delle sere in cui non muoio, mi trovo in una condizione molto precisa, che però a pensarci non mi sono mai presa il tempo di raccontare per bene: ***devo scrivere***...

stuff.octt.eu.org/2025/10/quan…

The lowdown on Nelson Wong’s interview is basically that the US-China trade war is a symptom of a deep-seated clash of worldviews. The US is freaking out because it’s scared China will replace it as the global hegemon, but Wong calls this fear a mental illness rooted in Western thinking that if I rise, you must fall. Meanwhile, China keeps saying, we just want to live our lives, we don't seek hegemony, and we don't need your drama. The problem is that the US is fixated on relative gains being stuck in a zero-sum game mindset instead seeking mutual benefits from trade, so it’s been all threats and bullying instead of sitting down at the table.

China has been been preparing for this fight for over a decade now. They’ve been quietly building up their economic resilience and insulating themselves from the US. Exports to the US used to be 15% of China’s total, now it’s down to 8%. So even if the US tries to yank the plug, it’s not going to break China. And then there’s the rare earth thing where China controls 80-90% of the processed stuff that goes into everything from chips to weapons. The US would need at least a decade to catch up in the most optimistic scenario. China’s been perfecting the processing tech since the 1950s, you can't replicate that overnight. So while the US is trying to rescue”its economy by dragging manufacturing home and basically trying to reverse globalization, China’s using its massive market and rare earth leverage to negotiate from strength.

Europe is in a tight spot here, though. Wong’s advice is not to become a pawn in America's trade war. Europe and China don’t have major geopolitical beefs, so why burn a good trade relationship for the US’s midlife crisis? Plus, if you hitch your wagon to the US, you’re just going to get stuck in their economic drama.

But the big takeaway is that China isn’t trying to be the next US. Wong argues it’s a fundamentally different civilization with its own culture, history, and philosophy that are built on harmony through coexistence rather than domination. As he puts it, Confucian principles mean gentleman seeks to get along, even if they don’t agree, and China’s got zero interest in forcing others to be like them. The whole universalism line of thinking of forcing everyone to be like you is just a misguided delusion.

Looking ahead, the world’s shifting. BRICS and other Global South alliances are rising because the unipolar US-dominated order is crumbling. China’s not just about being just the world’s factory anymore. It’s pivoting to science and tech leadership while pursuing knowledge-based growth. And because it’s been on the receiving end of hegemony itself, it doesn’t want to be the boss. That’s why its neighbors and partners like Russia are more comfortable with its rise. The future is a multipolar world where coexistence beats domination. Eventually, both sides will have to realize this fight’s a lose-lose and circle back to talks. Because neither the US nor China can afford to burn it all down.

Oggi pomeriggio, davvero a casissimo, perché l’idea mi è salita veramente in un lampo senza preciso motivo, ho deciso di sfruttare i miei privilegi da navigatrice consumata dei sette mari digitali, come in realtà non facevo da un po’… Quindi, sono uscita dalle mie pareti per installare e provare il nuovo giochino Leggende Pokémon: Z-A, […]

octospacc.altervista.org/2025/…

minioctt

2025-10-15 21:18:43

pokemonica godurianza ancora prima dell’uscita del domani! (impressioni a caldo Leggende Pokémon: Z-A al day -1)

Oggi pomeriggio, davvero a casissimo, perché l’idea mi è salita veramente in un lampo senza preciso motivo, ho deciso di sfruttare i miei privilegi da navigatrice consumata dei sette mari digitali, come in realtà non facevo da un po’… Quindi, sono uscita dalle mie pareti per installare e provare il nuovo giochino Leggende Pokémon: Z-A, che ufficialmente esce domani, ma io appunto sono speciale e magica, e quindi ci gioco in anticipo… nonché una blogger, quindi una giornalista semplicemente non riconosciuta, e quindi ecco qui le mie impressioni a caldo! 👌

Confesso che il gioco precedente, Leggende Arceus, non l’ho nemmeno mai provato… quindi non so precisamente, a livello di meccaniche, cosa è una novità del nuovo titolo, e cosa invece è una novità della saga, quindi già vista con il precedente, però… questo coso è fighissimo, veramente. Dato ciò, e il fatto che di questo gioco non mi sono spoilerata letteralmente niente — perché, a dire il vero, ho scoperto appena l’altro giorno che sta per uscire… e sul momento non mi sono nemmeno posta alcuna curiosità, perché è da un decennio che Pokémon mi delude, e quindi è da un lustro che lo snobbo — è stata tutta una grossa sospesa… e praticamente solo in positivo, per il momento. 🤯

La storia si svolge (o almeno inizia, poi chissà), a Luminopoli… che per me è una cosa assurda, perché la regione di Kalos fu la regione della fine della mia infanzia, ai tempi, e… non starò qui a spiegare tutto di ciò, per ora. È una Luminopoli che però non riconosco per niente, se non per sommi capi, perché è stata modificata un sacco per adattarla alla struttura di Leggende… però caspita se è goduriosa, perché ora sembra effettivamente una vera città, grande quanto una vera città del suo calibro, interamente navigabile in ogni sua parte… inclusi i fottuti tetti! E ci sono vari elementi con cui interagire, e oggetti da raccogliere… Per dirla in breve, me di 9 anni esploderebbe a vedere a confronto la Luminopoli di X/Y e questa nuova!!! 🔥

Ciò che sul momento mi ha completamente spiazzata — ma che, a pensarci bene, potrei di gran lunga preferire rispetto al classico RPG a turni, che fa fin troppo anni ’90 ma non in senso buono — è la meccanica delle lotte; che inizialmente è stata introdotta da Leggende Arceus ma, per l’appunto, non so se ci sia del nuovo in Leggende Z-A, e quanto. Sia gli scontri con gli allenatori, che gli incontri coi Pokémon selvatici (che, a quanto pare, qui attaccano anche gli umani, non solo i loro Pokémon… spaventoso), sono completamente dinamici, e avvengono lì, nell’ambiente, in tempo reale… e i magari hanno la classica cutscene di inizio e fine (ma dipende in realtà dal tipo di lotta), mentre con i secondi è tutto sempre così fluido che sembra davvero di stare lì in mezzo alle bestie. Servirà comunque tempo per abituarsi a questa roba, per me che ho problemi di skill, ma prende così tanto… 🥰

La città è tecnicamente tutta sbloccata quasi da subito, anche se nella pratica il gioco va avanti a missioni, e il sistema non permette di muoversi liberamente al 100%… non lascia andare troppo fuori dal tracciato stabilito in un dato momento per raggiungere l’obiettivo stabilito. Dà un po’ fastidio che, nonostante ci sia una buona mappa che già da sola dovrebbe permettere a chiunque di capire dove andare senza problemi, se si prova a muoversi troppo fuori dal tracciato non si incontrano solo muri invisibili, ma c’è pure il tizio che, da lontano o attraverso il telefono, richiama per ricordare dove si deve andare… uffa. E, nonostante la natura dinamica e diretta del cuore del gameplay, ci sono a mio parere troppe cutscene da o verso nero anche per semplici dialoghi, e questa cosa per me rompe l’immersione. Meno male che non è open-world, però. 👍

Nonostante i difettucci, il gioco non è “lento” e palloso come invece i classici Pokémon sono stati per me ultimamente, e anzi, ho veramente voglia di continuare a giocarci… caspita! Non mi aspettavo che sarebbe stato particolarmente divertente, e invece in circa 3 ore mi ha fatto addirittura letteralmente luccicare gli occhi. Tra l’altro, all’inizio era partito male anche dal lato software, perché mi sembrava tirasse laggate (giocando ovviamente su Switch 1, in dock), e invece devo dire che poi mi è parso stabile, tranquillo… ovviamente non gira a 60 FPS, ma ormai da Nintendo questo non si può mai più sperare. Non ho visto neanche bug, credo, c’è giusto qualche animazione che mi è sembrata legnosa, ma la goduria non viene intaccata. 🙌

Visto che non c’erano potenziali fonti di disturbo in casa, ho anche fatto una diretta streaming, per le prime 2 ore di gameplay, giusto per non marcire troppo nel giocare… su PeerTube, visto che ho paura che su YouTube Nintendo possa fare la sua classica mossa, dato che ho giocato con un giorno di anticipo; però tutto OK, trasmissione perfetta, grazie ai Devol. Per chi ha visto un pochino, grazie… mentre, per la maggior parte che non ha visto, pazienza! Però, il VOD (diviso in 2 video perché il coso ha deciso così) rimane disponibile, per chi vuole visionare le mie figuracce… peertube.uno/w/tXhxfxmFJ9mJfHB… e peertube.uno/w/sYXTLBSZnZKypcg…. (Forse li caricherò anche su YouTube, dopo l’uscita ufficiale del gioco, boh.) 🧨
Il gioco ha anche una funzione di fotocamera, simile ad Animal Crossing per Switch… ci si può mettere in posa e fare le foto stile turisti, che in effetti è il motivo per cui nella storia si finisce qui a Luminopoli, bello.
#impressioni #Pokémon #Pokemon

I would like to read what is the approach of people in this community

I take an hybrid approach: I bring a change, but I keep a pace that make me sweat lightly, so I don't need to take a shower at work. For the same reason I put my stuff in a pannier on the bike rack

Testing two completely different ways of bike commuting

Over the years, the way I've approached bike commuting has evolved so much that I now think there are two totally different approaches. This video offers advice on both of them so you can find the ...

^{Canadian Civil}

“As a result of the genocidal war committed by Israel, many hostages were killed with their Palestinian resistance guards, and communications were lost with some of the units responsible for the bodies,” the source told MEE.

“The Israeli public should hold Netanyahu, his cabinet, and the Israeli army responsible for the killing of these hostages and the loss of their bodies under the rubble, as more than 10,000 civilian Palestinians [are believed to be under the rubble].”

The source added [that] Hamas’s Qassam Brigades “frequently warned” that the Israeli army’s actions would lead to the deaths of captives, but “Israel did not scale back its attacks”.

“The Qassam units in charge of guarding Israelis, alive and dead, were targeted. The main difficulty [in finding the bodies] is losing contact with the guards, because the Israelis killed them.”

The source said that Hamas was committed to fulfilling its obligation under the agreement to return the remains of all of the captives, and said it was working hard to do so.

He noted that the wording of the agreement required Hamas to return the bodies “as soon as possible” and said Hamas was willing to cooperate with international entities, as agreed in the deal.

“Nothing was hidden,” he said. “[Hamas has] fulfilled its commitment with handing over the living hostages, despite all the bad faith from Israel by changing the list of the Palestinian prisoners to be released, not allowing the top names in the list to be released, and changing the list at the last minute."

“Despite that it (Hamas) fulfilled its commitments and released all alive hostages on time, as well as four dead hostages.”

The source added that Israel’s destruction of Gaza has “really changed the geography of the area”, making it “extremely difficult” to identify locations.

He condemned Israel’s decision to keep the Rafah crossing closed as a “serious infringement of the agreement” that would further hinder rescue and aid efforts.

“We call on the mediators to intervene immediately to resolve this matter,” he said.

Exclusive: Hamas says Israel’s ‘indiscriminate’ destruction of Gaza behind delay in locating captives' bodies

A senior Hamas source has told Middle East Eye that Israel bears responsibility for delays in locating and returning the bodies of captives still missing in Gaza.

^{David Hearst (Middle East Eye)}

Hi all,

First off, I want to apologize for all the server instability. We long ago outgrew our instance size, but I was unable to afford a larger node on our provider, Vultr. We were maxing out every part of the server whenever any even slightly significant number of users were on the fediverse.

I've finally found the time to migrate us to a new provider, which allows us to step up to a much more powerful configuration. That migration has now been completed. I actually intended to post about the downtime on this community this morning before beginning, but when I went to do so, the server was already down and struggling to come back up. So I went ahead with the migration.

Server before 4cpu/16GB/400GB NVMe
Server after 8cpu/64GB/1Tb NVMe

Please update this thread if you are seeing any issues around any part of the site. This means duplicate threads, things that aren't federating, inability to load profiles, etc.

There is still database tuning that needs to occur, so you should expect some downtime here and there, but otherwise the instance should be much more stable from now on.

During this process I also improved several other aspects of operating the server, so any 'actual' downtime should be accompanied by proper maintenance pages (that hopefully don't get wiped by ansible anymore), so that will also be a good indicator of legitimate maintenance.

Once again, I really apologize for all of the downtime. It's very frustrating to use a server that operates like this, I understand.

snowe

cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/6403457

Zip ties. Helicopters. Crowded cells. Guns trained on bewildered workers. Foul water. Forced vaccinations. An unconscious detainee left on the floor by negligent guards. A pregnant woman in handcuffs. A detainee being called “Rocket Man” (Donald Trump’s nickname for Kim Jong Un) by sneering federal agents. A menstruating woman forced to attend to her period with only toilet paper.

These are the details of 316 South Korean nationals’ experiences in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention that have flooded the country’s media in the weeks after the September 4 raid on a Hyundai-LG electric vehicle battery plant in Ellabell, Georgia. A wave of fury is now pouring forth from across South Korean society — and the political consequences are only just beginning.

There is far more at stake than a single factory in Georgia, which by itself represented 8,500 jobs and $4.3 billion in investment, and is just one of 23 plants being built across the U.S. by Korean conglomerates. Since the raid, the U.S. and South Korea have announced that Korean workers will be able to use B-1 visas and ESTA visa waivers to continue working in the U.S. A new bill in Congress, the Partner with Korea Act, also seeks to extend 15,000 professional E-4 visas to South Koreans for the first time.

But U.S. flexibility on immigration is not all that matters. Seoul and Washington have yet to finalize their trade deal instigated by Trump’s threat to impose a 25 percent blanket tariff on South Korean goods. At the current stage of negotiations, South Korea has agreed to accept a 15 percent tariff on its exports and provide tremendous investments and other financial agreements: $350 billion in state-backed short-term investment, $150 billion in private sector contracts with U.S. corporations, and a guarantee to purchase $100 billion in U.S. liquid natural gas. Despite so much on the table, a written agreement has yet to be produced, and negotiations are proving tense as the Trump administration presses for Seoul to provide the lion’s share of its $350 billion commitment in cash. While some of the shock over the ICE raid has died down, Washington’s conduct over the course of months of negotiations has also raised deeper questions in South Korea about the real nature of the alliance — and whether this is a relationship that can last.

The Art of the Steal

The anger unleashed by ICE’s abuse of Korean workers has been building for some time. Trump’s tariff threats, announced in March, hit South Korea at a difficult time, when the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol was unresolved, and the country was reeling from years of flagging economic performance.

The issue was not only a matter of timing. The Biden administration’s CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act also used similar (though less onerous) tariff threats to force South Korean conglomerates to transfer production and make large investments in the U.S. — which is how the Hyundai-LG plant made its way to Georgia in the first place. Having already complied with the previous administration, South Korea nevertheless now finds itself facing an even graver economic threat that could lead to recession: not just a 25 percent tariff on all exports (since reduced to 15 percent), but sector-based tariffs impacting most of South Korea’s key industries as well.

While much of the anger on either side of the Pacific has focused on the current administration in Washington, Trump’s tariffs are just the latest in a string of U.S. policies that have sought to deny South Korea its economic sovereignty, open its markets to foreign takeover, and degrade the rights and dignity of its working people.

Full Article

thelastaxolotl [he/him]

2025-10-11 23:29:26

After Hyundai ICE Raid, Even South Korea’s Capitalists Question US Relations

Zip ties. Helicopters. Crowded cells. Guns trained on bewildered workers. Foul water. Forced vaccinations. An unconscious detainee left on the floor by negligent guards. A pregnant woman in handcuffs. A detainee being called “Rocket Man” (Donald Trump’s nickname for Kim Jong Un) by sneering federal agents. A menstruating woman forced to attend to her period with only toilet paper.

These are the details of 316 South Korean nationals’ experiences in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention that have flooded the country’s media in the weeks after the September 4 raid on a Hyundai-LG electric vehicle battery plant in Ellabell, Georgia. A wave of fury is now pouring forth from across South Korean society — and the political consequences are only just beginning.

There is far more at stake than a single factory in Georgia, which by itself represented 8,500 jobs and $4.3 billion in investment, and is just one of 23 plants being built across the U.S. by Korean conglomerates. Since the raid, the U.S. and South Korea have announced that Korean workers will be able to use B-1 visas and ESTA visa waivers to continue working in the U.S. A new bill in Congress, the Partner with Korea Act, also seeks to extend 15,000 professional E-4 visas to South Koreans for the first time.

But U.S. flexibility on immigration is not all that matters. Seoul and Washington have yet to finalize their trade deal instigated by Trump’s threat to impose a 25 percent blanket tariff on South Korean goods. At the current stage of negotiations, South Korea has agreed to accept a 15 percent tariff on its exports and provide tremendous investments and other financial agreements: $350 billion in state-backed short-term investment, $150 billion in private sector contracts with U.S. corporations, and a guarantee to purchase $100 billion in U.S. liquid natural gas. Despite so much on the table, a written agreement has yet to be produced, and negotiations are proving tense as the Trump administration presses for Seoul to provide the lion’s share of its $350 billion commitment in cash. While some of the shock over the ICE raid has died down, Washington’s conduct over the course of months of negotiations has also raised deeper questions in South Korea about the real nature of the alliance — and whether this is a relationship that can last.

The Art of the Steal

The anger unleashed by ICE’s abuse of Korean workers has been building for some time. Trump’s tariff threats, announced in March, hit South Korea at a difficult time, when the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol was unresolved, and the country was reeling from years of flagging economic performance.

The issue was not only a matter of timing. The Biden administration’s CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act also used similar (though less onerous) tariff threats to force South Korean conglomerates to transfer production and make large investments in the U.S. — which is how the Hyundai-LG plant made its way to Georgia in the first place. Having already complied with the previous administration, South Korea nevertheless now finds itself facing an even graver economic threat that could lead to recession: not just a 25 percent tariff on all exports (since reduced to 15 percent), but sector-based tariffs impacting most of South Korea’s key industries as well.

While much of the anger on either side of the Pacific has focused on the current administration in Washington, Trump’s tariffs are just the latest in a string of U.S. policies that have sought to deny South Korea its economic sovereignty, open its markets to foreign takeover, and degrade the rights and dignity of its working people.

Full Article

After Hyundai ICE Raid, Even South Korea’s Capitalists Question US Relations | Truthout

Can the US and South Korea’s tenuous alliance survive Trump’s tariffs and ICE’s raid on a Hyundai-LG plant in Georgia?

^{britney (Truthout)}

cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/6420802

cross-posted from: ibbit.at/post/80541

Illustration by Nathaniel St. Clair

Every autocrat needs an enemy who threatens the country—preferably from both sides of the border. Such an enemy can serve as the reason to suspend the rule of law and boost executive power.

For Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it’s been the Kurds. For India’s Narendra Modi, it’s been the Muslims. For Russia’s Vladimir Putin, it was first the Chechens, then Alexei Navalny and his followers, and now the Ukrainians.

Donald Trump has built his political career—and, frankly, his entire personality—on the identification of enemies. His presidential run back in 2016 required belittling his rivals in those early Republican primaries (quite literally in the case of Marco Rubio). Later, he widened his scope to include everyone who attempted to thwart his ambitions, like the FBI’s James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. These days, everything that goes wrong in the United States he blames on former president Joe Biden (who had the temerity to beat him in the 2020 presidential election) and the “radical left” (which is basically anyone more liberal than Stephen Miller).

But such “enemies” are small fry, given Trump’s desire for ever greater power. To justify his attacks on Democratic-controlled cities, which is really an effort to suppress all resistance to his policies and his consolidation of presidential authority, he needs a more fearsome monster. To find such a bogeyman, he has dug deep into the American psyche and the playbooks of the autocratic leaders he admires.

On the road to finding the right monster and making America “great again”—a hero’s quest if there ever was one—Trump must first depict the United States as a fallen giant. During his first inaugural address, he declared that “this American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” According to Trump’s self-centered timeline, the carnage stopped during the four years of his first presidency and resumed once again when Biden took over. Carnage, for Trump, is really just a codeword for race—the fall in status of white people who have lost jobs, skin privilege, and pride of place in the history books. “Carnage” is what Black and Brown people have perpetrated by asserting themselves and taking political power, most often in cities.

It’s no surprise, then, that Trump has characterized American cities as “dangerous” and, in the case of Chicago, a “war zone.” In his recent address to a stony-faced group of U.S. military leaders, he said that cities are “very unsafe places and we’re going to straighten them out one by one.” He proposed that the military use American cities as a “training ground” to root out the “enemy within.”

Trump often refers to this “enemy within” as “violent radical left terrorism,” as in the White House’s recent statement on the deployment of the National Guard to Portland. But that doesn’t quite cover, for Trump, the clear and present dangers of drugs and gangs, which are central to justifying his tariff and immigration policies. For that, the president needs to pump up the carnage.

And that’s where Venezuela comes in.

A State of War

The United States is an economically powerful country with relatively low levels of crime. It does not resemble a tropical kleptocracy (not yet). Yet, Trump has gone to great lengths to make it seem that Americans face the same kind of violence that plagued the Philippines during the tenure of Rodrigo Duterte and El Salvador under the current reign of Nayib Bukele. Both autocrats undermined the rule of law to fight drug lords and organized crime. Duterte engaged in myriad extrajudicial killings that have now landed him in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity. Bukele has imprisoned more than one percent of the population, many of them innocent of any crimes, and has effectively declared himself president for life.

For Trump, who thinks of himself as a white savior (el salvador blanco), the key to Salvadorizing America is to depict a country rapidly going to the dogs, which necessitates sending U.S. troops into American cities and ICE agents into every corner of society. Despite Trump’s claims, the U.S. crime rate was close to a 50-year low in 2022, halfway through the Biden administration. In 2024, the rates for murder,removed, aggravated assault, and robbery all fell, according to the FBI.

Then Trump discovered Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang that he could use to demonize immigrants, blame for U.S. drug abuse, and tie to criminal activity in cities. The gang has served as the perfect pretext to remove the Temporary Protected Status of Venezuelans as well as round them up and deport them.

And now the administration is playing up the threat of groups like Tren de Aragua to attack boats near Venezuela’s coast and declare a war against drug cartels. Some voices within the administration are even pushing for a U.S. operation to dislodge Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

Has the United States replaced democracy promotion with a new, Trumpian form of carnage that it is exporting to the rest of the world, beginning with Venezuela?

The Purported Threat

Tren de Aragua began in a Venezuela prison about a decade ago. It quickly spread to other parts of Venezuela before branching out to the rest of Latin American and eventually to the United States. It has allegedly carried out hits, kidnapped people, and engaged in extensive drug trafficking. It has been linked to an assault on two New York policemen.

It sounds like a formidable organization, and Trump has done much to build up its reputation by branding it “terrorist” and putting it at the same level as the Islamic State.

In fact, Tren de Aragua is a decentralized organization that doesn’t pose a national security threat to any country much less the United States. Its links to the Venezuelan government are tenuous. Few if any of the roughly 250 Venezuelans deported earlier this year to a prison in El Salvador had any connections to the gang. Most were arrested on the basis of “gang” tattoos when Tren de Aragua doesn’t use tattoos as identifying markers.

The Trump administration’s order terminating Temporary Protected Status for approximately 300,000 Venezuelans living in the United States makes multiple mentions of Tren de Aragua. This week the Supreme Court upheld Trump’s move. The vast majority of Venezuelans left the country to escape gangs, economic chaos and corruption, or the government’s campaign to destroy the political opposition (which has included 19 cases of incommunicado detention). And now Trump is sending them back to lives of great uncertainty.

According to one poll, nearly half of Venezuelan supporters of Donald Trump, who were key in delivering Miami-Dade county to him in the last election, are having buyer’s remorse.

It’s one thing to break U.S. laws in going after immigrants. Now the Trump administration is breaking international laws and engaging in extrajudicial murder in its imagined pursuit of Tren de Aragua overseas.

On September 2, U.S. Special Operations forces attacked a boat near the Venezuelan coast that the administration alleges was a drug-running operation. It claimed to have killed 11 Tren de Aragua gang members. But it hasn’t provided any proof…of anything. The administration has released videos of the attacks without identifying the people it killed, offering any evidence that there were any drugs on board, or demonstrating that the boats had any links to Tren de Aragua.

Meanwhile, despite a war of words with Colombian leader Gustavo Petro over the latter’s pushback against Trump’s aggressive moves in the region, the United States recently teamed up with Colombia (and the UK) to arrest the alleged head of Tren de Aragua’s armed wing in the Colombian city of Valledupar. This police work received considerably less attention in the press—and from the U.S. government itself—than Trump’s clearly illegal attacks on Venezuelan boats.

Regime Change?

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, an autocrat in his own right, has predictably denounced U.S. actions and called up reserves to prepare to defend the country against a potential attack. Less predictably, after the sinking of that first boat, he sent a letter to the Trump administration arguing that he wasn’t involved in narco-trafficking and offering to meet with the administration’s envoy Richard Grenell. The administration ignored the letter and continued its attacks, though Grenell maintained contacts with Venezuela in order to swing a deal to avoid war and facilitate U.S. access to Venezuelan oil. This week, Trump instructed Grenellto stop this diplomatic outreach.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been building up the U.S. military presence in the region. It sent advanced F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico. It beefed up its naval flotilla with eight warships, some Navy P-8 surveillance planes, and an attack submarine. There are nearly 7,000 U.S. troops now deployed to the region.

This is considerably more firepower than a drug interdiction operation requires. But it’s not enough for a full-scale invasion of Venezuela.

This in-between approach may well reflect the conflict within the Trump administration between gung-ho regime-changers like Rubio and anti-interventionists like Grenell. The regime-changers, which include Stephen Miller and the head of the CIA John Ratcliffe, count on the support of Venezuelan opposition leaders like María Corina Machado, who had failed to pry Maduro from office in what was clearly a rigged presidential election last year. With many opposition figures now in jail or in exile, she views the U.S. military as a Hail Mary pass.

Other Venezuelans are much more cautious. “You kill Maduro,” one businessman there confided, “you turn Venezuela into Haiti.” After all, the weak opposition would have a hard time holding the country together amid a scramble for power and oil.

Longtime international affairs expert Leon Hadar points out that such carnage would not just be a problem for Venezuela. “Venezuela has already produced over seven million refugees and migrants,” he writes. “A state collapse scenario could easily double that number. Colombia, Brazil and other neighbors are already overwhelmed. Where do Trump and his advisors think these people will go?”

Given that Trump doesn’t make plans and instead improvises like a bombastic actor, his administration has probably not yet decided how to pursue regime change in Venezuela. The president likes to pit rival factions within his administration to see what the internal carnage will produce. As The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall concludes, “Today, full-scale military intervention in Venezuela remains unlikely. More probable is an intensified pressure campaign of destabilisation, sanctions, maritime strikes, and air and commando raids.”

The reality of Venezuela—the government, the gangs, the immigrants—poses no threat to the United States. The country sends a small percent of drugs here—most fentanyl comes from Mexico, most cocaine from Colombia—while the vast majority of Venezuelans in the United States are law-abiding citizens. Maduro’s military couldn’t do much against U.S. forces, and so far Venezuela has not struck back against what has been a clear violation of its sovereignty.

Trump’s war on drugs and full-court press on deportations, on the other hand, depend on this idea of Venezuela as a full-blown threat. Venezuela presents Trump with carte blanche to deploy the U.S. military in America’s backyard and in America’s own cities.

Really, it’s no surprise that Trump wants such a white card. He’s been playing such trump cards all his life.

The post Will American Carnage Spread to Venezuela? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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