fits my needs posted:

wtf is antiracism training

Good Citizen posted:

spoiler for art titties

lumpentroll posted:

gonna turn this into the GBS india thread

Echo Chamber posted:

Echo Chamber posted:

Homeless Friend posted:

Chuka Umana posted:

I'm surprised Hezbollah isn't making moves now since they have the real firepower that can get past the iron dome.

lumpentroll posted:

gonna turn this into the GBS india thread

fits my needs posted:

https://twitter.com/ChinaDaily/status/1392686145029304321?s=20

fits my needs posted:

https://twitter.com/ChinaDaily/status/1392686145029304321?s=20

Echo Chamber posted:

lumpentroll posted:

gonna turn this into the GBS india thread

quote:

The most immediate causes of the current crisis began to appear around 2016, when perennial head of the Lebanese central bank, Riad Salameh, a powerful figure backed by Washington, began what he called ​“financial engineering” measures to increase the central bank’s hard currency reserves. Since his appointment in 1993, after having worked for Merrill Lynch, Salameh’s prime directive has been to maintain the lira peg to the dollar at all costs.

But by the late 2010s, Lebanon was already a country of runaway consumption, importing roughly $20 billion and exporting approximately $3 billion. To cover such a huge trade deficit and pay off the ballooning foreign debt, while also maintaining a stable lira, Salameh offered high interest rates to attract billions of dollars to Lebanon’s banks.

Already, Lebanon enjoyed several significant streams of hard currency that helped Salameh in his herculean task. The largest of these was remittances from Lebanese working abroad, mainly in the Gulf and West Africa, who sent home around $8 billion annually (not counting what is estimated to be an equivalent amount that came into the country by other means). Billions more came from exports, tourism, international aid and loans, and Arab — particularly Syrian — capital deposited in Lebanese banks.

In 2016, due to a variety of reasons, the flow of hard currency started to dry up at a frightening pace, prompting the central bank’s ​“financial engineering” measures. This only had the effect of kicking the problem down the road in the hope that the coming years will bring about some sort of reprieve. Instead, the country’s economy continued to deteriorate, and pressure on the lira intensified, until the inevitable reckoning arrived in the final months of 2019.

U.S. pressure, in the form of a wide array of sanctions and increased scrutiny of Lebanon’s financial system, was one decisive factor that made many Lebanese abroad — and any foreign investor, for that matter — think twice about sending money home or depositing it in Lebanese banks. Washington claimed that the Lebanese resistance party Hezbollah and the Syrian régime, both under U.S. sanctions, were using Lebanese banks to launder money or funnel dollars from abroad to fund their activities.

Given that Lebanon’s financial system is heavily dollarized (75% of bank deposits are in U.S. dollars), Washington’s influence over the sector is near total. In just one example, two well-established financial institutions sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department — the Lebanese Canadian Bank (accused of laundering drug money for Hezbollah in 2011) and Jammal Trust Bank (alleged to have facilitated the financing of Hezbollah in 2019) — were liquidated without hesitation by the central bank, and without the slightest protest from Lebanese officials.

Sanctions against Hezbollah and Syria have been around in one form or another for decades, but the Trump administration has taken them to new heights. Since launching its ​“maximum pressure” campaign against Iran in 2018, the administration has unleashed a relentless barrage of wide-ranging and crippling sanctions against Tehran’s allies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Iran and Syria, with their relatively closed and largely state-run economies, are better able to cope with sanctions than a laissez-faire country like Lebanon that is integrally tied to Western capital.

fits my needs posted:

https://twitter.com/ChinaDaily/status/1392686145029304321?s=20

quote:

#CubaFlag of Cuba strongly condemns Israel's indiscriminate bombing of the population #palestinaFlag of Palestinian Territories in Gaza and denounces the permanent support of the United States for these crimes.

Chuka Umana posted:

Does anyone know where I can find a list of actions across the US?

Nonsense posted:

Indian Nationalists haven't suffered enough yet.

quote:

#COMUNICADO| Venezuela condemns the new violent actions against the Palestinian people by Israel, and makes an alert call to the international community, reaffirming its historical position in defense of the sovereignty, independence and self-determination of Palestine

Atrocious Joe posted:

https://twitter.com/BrunoRguezP/status/1392173477038276608?s=20

Atrocious Joe posted:

https://twitter.com/jaarreaza/status/1391941750122553346

Office Pig posted:

remember when guaido trotted out a giant israeli flag for no reason

Malleum posted:

Calling a jewish nation an apartheid state is exceptionally gross.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Zeroisanumber posted:

I'm way late with this but eat poo poo.

Office Pig posted:

remember when guaido trotted out a giant israeli flag for no reason