133arc585 @ 133arc585 @lemmy.ml

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2 yr. ago

It's not the only instance of Ukraine using them. I didn't attempt to do a full inventory of their use. My point was they are using them when you claimed they aren't.

If you can find accurate claims of how much stock they have remaining, then sure, I very well could be wrong, but again it's curious: if they have a sizeable stockpile, why ask for more, and why the whole tone of "it'll change the trajectory of the war" and "it's necessary for Ukraine's defense" surrounding their delivery?

Snowden doesn’t make any public statements any more without express permission from the Russian government.

Can you provide sources for this?

It might make sense for him to self-censor to avoid angering one of the few places that are allowing him to stay but even that's not a given: if he felt something needed to be said badly enough, he's shown to be the type of person who would rather something be said and take the repercussions on the nose than to leave something unsaid.

Land in North Korea is widely known to be barely arable. So if they can't meet demand domestically, they must import food.

Climate, terrain, and soil conditions are not particularly favorable for farming, with a relatively short cropping season. Only about 17% of the total landmass, or approximately 20,000 km2, is arable, of which 14,000 km2 is well suited for cereal cultivation; the major portion of the country is rugged mountain terrain.^1

The weather varies markedly according to elevation, and lack of precipitation, along with infertile soil, makes land at elevations higher than 400 meters unsuitable for purposes other than grazing. Precipitation is geographically and seasonally irregular, and in most parts of the country as much as half the annual rainfall occurs in the three summer months. This pattern favors the cultivation of paddy rice in warmer regions that are outfitted with irrigation and flood control networks. Rice yields are 5.3 tonnes per hectare, close to international norms.^2

But, they have trouble importing food, because the USA has decided to sanction and blockade them. This affects not only direct trade with the USA, but because of the way sanctions work when issued by the USA, any country that also itself does trade with the USA is at risk themselves to be sanctioned by the USA for trading with North Korea.

So, you have a situation where they can't grow enough domestically, and foreign powers are preventing them from importing the food they need. And you want to say it's their fault that they have food shortages?

Of note, nearing 100% of North Korea's foreign trade is with China. Of that, food imports constitute a sizeable portion.

Now, I do not know why they do not import more food (enough to meet all demand) from China; I do not know if China is not allowing it, or if North Korea is not trying it, or if North Korea can not afford it, or what have you. If you have information on this specifically, please provide me sources (and not speculation) so that I can learn.

Additionally, Ukraine has NOT used their stockpile of cluster munitions, out of respect for this western ignorance that could be used by Russia against them.

Do you mean they haven't used all of their stockpile? If that's the case, why are they asking for more?

We know they've used some, so combine the fact that they've used some, with the fact that they're asking for more, and how can you conclude anything other than that they've used (most of if not all of) their stockpile?

• To Push Back Russians, Ukrainians Hit a Village With Cluster Munitions
• Ukraine used cluster munitions — which many countries have banned — to force Russian troops out of a village, report says

“Signal’s use luckily never caught on by the general public of China (or the Hong Kong Administrative region), whose government prefers autonomy, rather than letting US tech control its communication platforms, as most of the rest of the world naively allows.”

When you’re holding up China as an example for the world to follow for privacy

I interpret that quote to say that China doesn't trust US tech like the rest of the world does. It's not saying that China has more privacy and the rest of the world should follow, it's saying that the rest of the world also shouldn't be so naively trustworthy of US tech either.

However I can’t seem to turn off the telemetry at all…

Which telemetry, specifically? Anything you can't find in the standard settings menu can be found in about:config. There are plenty of articles with huge lists of settings to adjust in about:config with explanations on what different values do.

Brave Search and Brave Browser are both products of the same company, Brave Software, Inc.

The US already has 80k troops there, 3k more isn’t some kind of escalation.

Is 83K more than 80K? Yes? Then it's an escalation.

Nobody makes cluster bombs in the US by the way.

This is somewhere between disingenuous and flat-out wrong.

Textron is a USA firm that produces Sensor Fuzed Weapons (SFW). The SFW is a cluster munition that is prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The USA's Air Force has been the primary buyer of these until about 2016. Although it seems direct sales of cluster munitions halted around 2016 when the moratorium on cluster munitions was put in to place, this firm is still responsible for maintenance (which they are paid for) of existing munitions. (You'll note as well that "stockpiling and/or retention of cluster munitions" is also against the Convention on Cluster Munitions, not just the manufacture and use of them).

Orbital ATK (operating as Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems since its acquisition by defense contractor Northrop Grumman in 2018), a USA defense contractor, previously produced key components of the Textron weapons mentioned above. Although they no longer produce these parts for these purposes directly, they still have ongoing tangential contracts.

Moreover, these cluster munitions that are going to be sent are filled with M42/M46 grenades, which from what I can tell are manufactured by USA-based defense firms. The shells, which include the M1122, are coming from recycled munitions, so they aren't being manufactured new; but: they were produced by USA-based defense firms originally, and their consumption motivates replacement which also happens by USA-based defense firms.

Also, the notorious defense firms Lockheed Martin and Alliant Techsystems are helping develop the next generation of cluster munitions; so, increased use of the existing generation will almost certainly cause increased spending on future generations of the same type of weapon.

No offense but you sound blue-eyed and idealistic when history has shown this to be a typical outcome.

To me, the issue is that it increased. Whether by a small amount or not is rather meaningless if your complaint is that troops are being committed at all. It could have increased by 30 troops and (although it wouldn't have made news) it would bother me.

I'm guessing you are in voluntary reserves then, right? Because to advocate for sending others to die in a needless war, when you yourself aren't volunteering to do exactly that, is hypocritical and frankly ghoulish.

The concentration at which it is released is already internationally regarded as safe. They aren't dumping a high concentration that, by nature of distribution in the ocean, will eventually reach a safe concentration. They're diluting it to safe levels before they even release it. I'm going to copy part of another comment I made in this thread here:

Here's an IAEA overview as of February 2023,

The discharge of the ALPS treated water into the sea will be conducted after i) purification/re-purification to meet regulatory standards set based on international standards with an exception of tritium and ii) to allay the concerns of the consumers, the target concentration of tritium should be the same as the operational target (less than 1,500 Bq/L, that is less than 1/40 of the regulatory standard value for tritium) by sufficient dilution (more than 100 times) by sea water, prior to the discharge into the sea, and iii) The total annual amount of tritium to be discharged will be at a level below the operational target value for tritium discharge of the Fukushima Daiichi NPS before the accident (22 trillion Bq/year).

This release will represent less ocean irradiation than did the operating Fukushima plant.

What's more, it's cleaner than when Fukushima was operational!

The total annual amount of tritium to be discharged will be at a level below the operational target value for tritium discharge of the Fukushima Daiichi NPS before the accident

I'm very rusty here, so please correct me where I'm wrong.

Isn't most of the radiation that makes it to the earth's surface from the sun just EM radiation? That acts a lot different than radiation due to nuclear decay. Your use of the unit 'tons' makes me think you're talking about particle radiation, of which the only one that reaches earth's surface in large quantities would be muons, which may as well be ignored because they aren't interacting with anything.

The water being released by Japan has the following isotopes:

All four of these isotopes decay via beta decay.

So, a comparison to the Sun seems weird here.

Here's an IAEA overview as of February 2023,

The discharge of the ALPS treated water into the sea will be conducted after i) purification/re-purification to meet regulatory standards set based on international standards with an exception of tritium and ii) to allay the concerns of the consumers, the target concentration of tritium should be the same as the operational target (less than 1,500 Bq/L, that is less than 1/40 of the regulatory standard value for tritium) by sufficient dilution (more than 100 times) by sea water, prior to the discharge into the sea, and iii) The total annual amount of tritium to be discharged will be at a level below the operational target value for tritium discharge of the Fukushima Daiichi NPS before the accident (22 trillion Bq/year).

So it's diluted well below internationally accepted concentrations. Moreover, the release is even less than when it was operational!

Ah interesting. That is unfortunate.

Constructive like your memes about nuking innocent people?

You realize Lemmy shows the usernames of people right above the comment, right? It helps to not get people confused before you accuse them of doing something they didn't do.

Please tell me precisely where I posted any memes, much less "memes about nuking innocent people".

Isn't there another person who knows how, but just restricts themselves to very specific games? I wonder if there's any way to convince them to help replace the too-far-gone Empress. I understand they probably also don't want to just make the cracking info public, as it would presumably just accelerate the cat-and-mouse game, but perhaps they could be convinced to help bring a new person up to speed? I wonder if they could be convinced by donations to mentor an Empress replacement?

What a great forum this is. Where tankie trolls operate with impunity, but being mean to them is not allowed.

What a great forum this is. Where people I disagree with can express their opinions with impunity, but personally attacking them is not allowed.

Personal attacks ("being mean", to euphemize) are not constructive. And most people consider the ability to express dissenting opinions a good thing.

Yikes it really does just keep giving, doesn't it.

Edit: I couldn't find a transcript of the linked radio episode, but I did find this related news article from the same network:

The Christchurch shooting, Eastern Europe's far-right and a 'cherry-picked reading of history'. ABC News AU. 2019.

A need for Europe to undergo a rebirth or renewal — or "Reconquista" in Azov's terms. Talk about ethno-nationalist homelands and ethno-states. A deep disdain for democracy. References to Valhalla, the place in Norse mythology where warriors go after they die in battle and a common neo-Nazi trope. Talk about a need to march through a country's institutions, to play a longer-term game and seek positions of power and influence in society.

Very clear intentions of slowly and methodically capturing the government and holding power. And of course they wouldn't stop at capturing the Ukrainian government--it's an international movement.