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PaperclipPerfector  15d ago (text post)   614 thread views

Transnational Thursday for October 30, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Nine people injured after a stabbing attack on a train from Doncaster to London. Police have two suspects in custody, British nationals in their thirties.

Actual British nationals, or the kind of British nationals that have very British names like Muhammad?

EDIT:

Ah, here we go:

There are two men in police custody.

They are a 32-year-old black British male and 35-year-old British national of Caribbean descent.

If they say "British nationals" as opposed to "Englishmen" or "Britons", you can join the dots.

A 32-year-old black male and a 35-year-old black male of Caribbean descent were arrested by Cambridgeshire Police when officers stormed on board. Both men are British nationals

From the Daily Mail. Likely a consequence of higher rates of schizophrenia among this population rather than Islamist terrorism (almost all are Christian, and jihadism comes with a few common indicators, not just the ‘god is great’ thing but also usually at least a few shouted lines to clarify motive, as in the recent synagogue stabbing).

A friend of mine from Japan mentioned it. I misread their message and told my dad there’d been a serious stabbing on a Japanese train. He said, “Really?!”

Then I reread it, told him it had happened in England, and he said, “oh, right, that makes sense.”

Some headlines I'm reading:

Geopolitics

United States

Trump tells Pentagon to resume testing US nuclear weapons | Reuters

Rest of the Americas

Largest ever police raid in Rio de Janeiro leaves at least 132 dead, public defender’s office says. Approximately 2,500 police officers participated in the operation.

At least 132 killed in Rio police raid, officials say

Europe

Russia has tested a new nuclear powered, nuclear-capable missile

Middle East

Israeli raid in Lebanon kills municipal worker

Israeli soldiers raid municipal building in southern Lebanon, kill employee | AP News

Iran

The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, a resistance group in Iran with good English publicity, organized protests, reports Iran News Update, as well as their twitter presence. Our sources from Iran tell us that [hopefully they'll get back to us by Monday]. Some background on the MEK.

Gaza

Deadliest day in Gaza since ceasefire as Israel launches wave of strikes, accusing Hamas of breaching truce | CNN

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 104, health ministry says

Netanyahu Orders New Strikes on Gaza as U.S. Insists Ceasefire Still Holding

Israel kills more than 100 in strikes after soldier's death, says it still backs ceasefire.

Yemen
Asia

Thai, Cambodia leaders sign expanded ceasefire deal with Trump present.

Text transcript of the Ministry of Defense regular press conference, October 2025

Plenary session on national defense and military modernization as it decides on its 15th five-year plan

India/Pakistan

15% of deaths in Delhi in 2023 linked to air pollution

Africa

Over 1,850 Sudanese civilians killed in North Darfur this year, UN says, calls for El-Fasher siege to end

Macron’s great lakes peace push falters amid gunfire and skepticism over Goma airport plans | Africanews

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the reopening of Goma airport in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for humanitarian flights, and revealed a pledge for 1.5B EUR in international aid. M23 rebels, who control the area, called the plan "inopportune, disconnected from realities on the ground".

UN alarmed by ‘terrifying’ situation in Sudan’s El Fasher, calls for immediate ceasefire | UN News

RSF claims capture of El Fasher after fierce battles with Sudanese army

Key Sudan city falls to paramilitary group following 18-month siege

Satellite images reveal evidence of mass killings in Sudan's El Fasher

Reported massacre at hospital in Sudan’s El Fasher leaves 460 dead | UN News

RSF kills ‘at least 1,500 people’ in Sudan’s el-Fasher

At least 460 people killed in El Fasher's last functioning hospital in Sudan

Tanzania opposition says over 700 killed in vote protests

Biorisks

H9N2 Bird Flu Virus Could Pose Human Pandemic Risk, Experts Warn

New virus with potential to spark another pandemic discovered in bats in South America.

To combat the spread of H5N1, officials in the states of Saarland and Hamburg have enacted bans on free-range poultry farming

Germany culls over 400K poultry

Artificial Intelligence

More tech

Economy

Trump shaves China tariffs in deal with Xi on fentanyl, rare earths | Reuters

Trump-Xi 'amazing' summit brings tactical truce, not major reset | Reuters

Climate and Nature

Others

Chinese fentanyl trafficking operator arrested in Cuba

Thoughts on Venezuela? I hear the US is getting ready to do something beyond just blowing up some boats, though we may be waiting for the Gerald R Ford carrier group to arrive around November 12th-17th... it's literally 'another two weeks.'

My forecasters are split:

Forecasters now believe there’s a 52% chance (range: 36% to 65%) that the US will carry out an airstrike on Venezuelan soil before December 2025, down from 61% last week.

How can I answer a question like that? Are there plans for a strike on Venezuela? Who would say that? Supposing there were. Would I say that to you? “Yes, we have plans, we have very secret plans!” Who would say that? You know, what kind of a question is it?—Trump

Dutch elections happened on Wednesday.

The background is that the cordon sanitaire against the populist right broke after the November 2023 election. After protracted negotiations, Dick Schoof became an independent Prime Minister in May 2024, leading a coalition of the PVV (right-populist, led by Geert Wilders), the VVD (right-liberal), BBB (agrarian populist), and NSC (Christian Democrats LARPing as populists). Schoof's background was as a career civil servant working on internal security - his last job before becoming PM was as secretary-general (the top career bureaucrat in a department, equivalent to a UK permanent secretary) at the Ministry of Justice and Security - he was acceptable to the PVV because he had previously become controversial as the head of the unit responsible for infiltrating mosques and spying on suspected Islamist terrorists. The Schoof cabinet collapsed after less than a year in June 2025 after a row over refugee policy (there were many disagreements, but it looks like the critical one is that the PVV wanted to start deporting Syrian refugees back to Syria on the grounds that the civil war was over), leading the early elections.

The UK MSM has focussed on the legally irrelevant but news-generating (because close) question of which party "won" by getting most votes nationally - the left-liberal D66 are 15,000 votes ahead of PVV with about 30,000 still to be counted. (At points yesterday they were only 2,000 ahead). But this doesn't matter - the Netherlands uses list-based PR and both parties will get 26 seats (out of 150). D66 leader Rob Jetten is the de facto Prime Minister-elect.

We are smarter than the MSM, so lets take a less retarded perspective. This was a throw-the-bums-out election, with all 4 governing parties taking a bath. PVV are down from 37 to 26, VVS are down from 24 to 22, BBB down from 7 to 4, and NSC down from 20 to zero (oops!). So 36 seats lost by former governing parties.

The other loser is the main centre-left list (a de facto merger between the Greens and the PvdA, which is the Dutch equivalent of UK Labour) is down from 25 to 20.

The gainers are D66 (up from 9 to 26), the Christian Democratic CDA (up from 5 to 18, mostly from NSC voters returning to their traditional party), and two smaller right-populist parties. FvD (further right than PVV - they support an EU exit referendum and don't kick out actual brownshirt-and-swastika Nazis) are up from 3 to 7 and JA21 (who split from FvD after FvD leadership refused to kick out some youth activists who publicly stanned Anders Breivik, but now claim to be less right-wing than PVV) are up from 1 to 9.

What are the possible takeaways?

  • Coalitions between right populists and non-right populists don't work well for anyone involved. Many such cases - this isn't the first.
  • The right populist vote is robust at just over 25%. The total number of seats for right populist parties went up from 41 to 42. Even if individual right populist parties beclown themselves, the phenomenon isn't going away.
  • Pasokification is contagious - the merger has Pasokified the Greens rather than reviving the PvdA.
  • Fake populists get found out
  • Liberal parties cand turn votes

My non-expert guesses about coalition formation (48/150): Parties that will definitely not join a D66-led coalition: PVV/FvD/JA21 - right populist - 42 seats total Socialist Party - far left, basically commies - 3 seats SGP - Protestant fundamentalists - 3 seats Parties that are very unlikely to join a D66-led coalition (13/150): BBB - Agrarian populist - 4 seats Christian Union - Christian Democrats, but more explicitly Christian than CDA - 3 seats PvdD - single-issue animal rights - 3 seats 50+ - single-issue pensioner rights - 2 seats Volt - IAmVerySmart online liberals - 1 seat Parties that might join a D66-led coalition (89/150 with 76 needed for a majority) D66 - left-liberal - 26 seats VVD - right-liberal - 22 seats Centre-left - 20 seats CDA - Christian Democrats - 18 seats Denk - anti-racist, led by assimilated Muslim immigrants - 3 seats

So the only possible majority coalition is the one that combines all four traditional major parties (D66, VVD, PvdA and CDA). A coalition including right-populists is unlikely after what happened last time. It is also hard to form - the total for left and liberal parties that wouldn't touch right populists with a bargepole is 58 seats leaving the right needing to get 76 out of a possible 92 votes while dealing with the bad blood between the former governing parties, and also the rival right populist parties. A left-wing coalition can similarly forget about the right populists, SGP, CU and VVD meaning they need 76 out of 80 available votes while dealing with the People's Front of Judea.

I predict a minority government. D66 historically prefer to work with VVD and PvdA, leaving them 8 seats short of a majority and with plenty of places to go looking for them on a vote-by-vote basis. But the 4-way Grand Coalition definitely could happen.

Someone seen any good analysis what happens after the fall of Pokrovsk? Right now the situation there is quite grim for the defenders. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyprrp1d50o

Not much. The fundamental problem of the war hasn't been solved: neither country can conduct large-scale offensive operations. Russia has rebuilt enough of its armor for a mechanized push, but it can't execute one because any concentration of tanks and IFVs is too obvious.

Ukraine is losing, but it is not losing fast enough. Right now their strategy is to retreat as slowly as possible while attacking Russian refineries and now power plants, basically asking the question, "how much Russian infrastructure are you willing to sacrifice just to prove you can beat us?" The Russian strategy is to trade pieces while they are ahead in material, as this increases relative advantage.

Big Serge has a pretty sober analysis out recently on his substack -- short version as I recall is that the Russians are doing bite & hold, and this is basically just another bite -- not particularly exciting in and of itself, but shaping the lines for whatever they plan to bite next. Plus of course keeping Ukrainian forces pinned down and inflicting losses which one presumes will eventually become significant.

I have no idea what is happening in Pokrovsk, but I note that it isn't somewhere where a Western MSM outlet is going to be able to maintain a full-time reporter, and someone has been briefing the Western MSM that it is about to fall on-and-off for about a year now.

The BBC's sources here are a lying Russian general and a lying Ukrainian general. I don't need the MSM to know what lies the lying liars want to tell me. If they can't their own reporter into Pokrovsk, they could shut up. I know it's expensive and dangerous - that's what I pay my licence fee for, and it's why war reporters have the status they do.

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