Edit 2: my last mod action was deleting a spam post yesterday
Edit 3: the only time I don't mark edits is when they're done literally minutes after posting and because they don't change my point (spacing, sources). I've marked all of my edits regarding this issue because, after looking at the new information that had come up, I realized that I was entirely wrong and Russian actions were completely violating standards of conduct in armed conflict.
Edit 4: the comments are still showing up on the alt I lurk on so idk what's going on lol
That's a fair point, but I'd like to clarify that I'm not calling socdem countries socialist. I think there's a difference between socdem policy and UBI in terms of their impacts on the economy, on the social contract, and on politics.
Russia indicated they would veto and both China and India were also opposed to it (though India doesn't really matter in terms of UNSC resolutions). Remember that Russia had been voting for earlier resolutions on the issue (1160 and 1199) and China had been abstaining to prior votes under the policy of nonintervention on internal matters.
It's important to note that, according to this translation of the Serbian Assembly, on March 23rd, the Serbian government had accepted the notion of Kosovo's autonomy under the condition of avoiding NATO intervention:
The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia empowers the state delegation to sign a political agreement on self rule in Kosovo-Metohija on which agreement will be reached by representatives of all ethnic communities living in Kosovo-Metohija
(at the time, Albanians were still by far the dominant ethnic community).
I'd argue that NATO intervention was likely to be one of the key factors that stopped Russia from advocating for the agreement. With pressure from all other parties, it's hard to imagine a world where Serbia wouldn't be forced to come to a more agreeable compromise. The OSCE KVM prior to the deterioration of negotiations was doing it's job of preventing further escalation, after all, and it's important to note that only about a third of the 1.2 million Albanians displaced by the war had been displaced up to that point (largely due to work by the KVM) and that, as a direct consequence of NATO intervention, the forced displacement of Kosovar Albanians was accelerated significantly.
Although the best I could find for California was household average salary, it is 62k USD for Madera county and 55k for Kern county. These two counties make up the endpoints of the initial segment of California HSR, which is currently projected to cost $35 billion.
There's definitely a gap, but it's not a huge one.
With news coming out that there wasn't a valid military target in the area that would justify an attack of this scale (and the lack of Russian confirmation of a successful hit on a Ukrainian general), I was wrong. This does seem like an indiscriminate attack on a marginally relevant target that doesn't follow the principles of proportional response to minimize civilian casualties and Russia is fucked for authorizing this strike.
Coal makes up something like 70% of India's electricity production. India's electricity demand grew at a rate of 10.7% last month, a supply gap that India is unable to bridge with renewables alone.
There are currently about 1.7 million Afghan asylum seekers in Pakistan. Pakistan claims it will deport them in a "phased and orderly matter." Afghanistan says that "the behavior of Pakistan against Afghan refugees is unacceptable."
She deserves it. Her writings shine a light on Iran's radical religious policy against women and on Iran's treatment of political prisoners (particularly women).
From what I gathered, though, the high-speed connection got support from Northern England only because of the connections up to Manchester and Leeds lol.
My understanding has been that the entire point of a progressive tax system is to sap money from the wealthy and redistribute it towards the public good. Whether that system works is debatable, sure.
Point being, actual UBI would require significant tax hikes and closing of tax loopholes which predominantly target the wealthy. While that may lead to capital flight, it's not a bad thing. As a whole, UBI wouldn't be a small step but a massive stride towards achieving socialism.
Who the fuck uses an Iskander to target a group of friends and family in the middle of nowhere? Either there was some high-ranking Ukrainian officer at the funeral or Russia got shoddy reports that there would be and fucked up their target confirmation.
As far as terror attacks go, there are frankly much easier and much more impactful targets. As far as military targets go, there are far more strategic targets with lower risk of civilian casualties. A group of low-ranked military personnel and their families is hardly a high-value strategic target.
Something isn't adding up, so I think you're right and Russian intelligence fucked up badly. Corroborating this is that we've had no Russian confirmation of the death of whoever the target was supposed to be.
Edit: looking more closely at new reports, it really does seem like Russia fucked up bad. It's a completely disproportionate response to (from what I can tell) seems like a meeting of low-value targets in a non-military context surrounded by civilians.
China's entire high speed network (42000km) was funded on only $900 billion of debt... Yet HS2 is estimated to cost $130 billion and California HSR $128 billion. For comparison, the Beijing-Shanghai high speed rail cost $38 billion (inflation-adjusted) and the Beijing-Tianjin line (China's first HSR) cost about $3.3 billion (inflation-adjusted).
London-Birmingham is a distance of about 160km, Los Angeles-San Francisco is a distance of about 560km, Beijing-Shanghai is a distance of about 1060km, and Beijing-Tianjin is a distance of about 110km (all straight-line).
Edit: another comparison, Japan's Chuo Shinkansen, which is pioneering high-speed maglev technology at scale and involves an absolutely astronomical amount of tunneling, is estimated to cost only $60 billion for 266km.
This is a terrible summary.