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Links 2/4/2026

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‘I don’t think I am a hero’: Boy, 13, describes ‘superhuman’ swim to save family BBC

resilc, who has a farm, provides a wee change from our regular programming:

Ultra-processed foods should be treated more like cigarettes than food – study Guardian. Paul R: “‘UPFs are made to encourage addiction and consumption and should be regulated like tobacco, say researchers.'”

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Nipah Virus Has Asia on High Alert Amid New Cases in India NBC. No cases in Thailand but monitoring has been tightened further. Nipha has a fatality rate of >40%

Climate/Environment

Ocean Heat Goes Ballistic CounterCurrents

Meteorologists Warn of an Unusually Early Arctic Breakdown Forming in February Earth

Amazon deforestation may rise 30% as major traders exit historic soy pact Mongabay

Some tropical land may heat up nearly twice as much as oceans under climate change, sediment record suggests PhysOrg

China?

Hopeful signs in China’s property market? Not really, say developers Economic Times

China bans security software from the US and Israel Kevin Walmsley

Now that I live in Asia, I take posturing about China’s virtues with a fistful of salt. The fact that the US utterly squandered its enormous advantages including not having been a gracious victor when the USSR collapsed and being so dopey as to think it could dominate China “because democracy” when it pushed for China to be allowed WTO preferred status when it did not qualify, and now has and is now openly predatory on many fronts to try to claw back, clearly makes China much less bad in comparison. But that does not make China a paragon, which is the weird default position of many commentators. One can hope that China is genuine in not intending to use finance as a tool of international economic domination. But don’t fall for thinking that great powers are nice or are not interested in first and foremost promoting their national interests. Chinese businessmen are famously ruthless. See zero dollar factories as one of many examples:

Xi Jinping on the Chinese Financial System Karl Sanchez. In a bit of synchronicity. Chuck L, who sent the tweet above, asked if Xi had been reading Hudson. Sanchez pinged Hudson for his take. Hudson pointed out, among other things, that China, and Xi was following that policy, was not taxing land to prevent rentierism and also gave preference to US-trained, as in neoliberalized, economic students.

India

Keep in mind that Modi maintains that key agricultural sectors, particularly dairy (which is already subject to regulations that US producers would not be willing to meet) will be protected. Nevertheless:

The Russian niggle in the India-US trade deal amid the celebrations Economic Times

Why India Will Struggle to Reduce Its Reliance on Russian Oil Wall Street Journal

Steeper Discounts on Russian Oil Test India Response to US Deal Bloomberg

Southeast Asia

China Briefing: Myanmar Scam Bosses Executed, and a $500-Bn Trade Boost in Works for Post-Coup Regime Irrawaddy

Africa

UAE’s imperial pivot hits African wall: Riyadh pulls the rug The Cradle

The US Might Make The Sahelian Alliance An Offer That It Can’t Refuse Andrew Korybko

South of the Border

Mexico’s president pledges to send aid to Cuba despite US efforts to cut oil access Guardian

European Disunion

Old Blighty

Mandelson to quit House of Lords as PM says he ‘let country down’ over alleged leaks to Epstein BBC

Starmer to release Mandelson files Telegraph. No archived version yet.

Sarah Ferguson emails to Epstein show increasing desperation BBC (Kevin W)

More people despair over ‘broken Britain’ than during financial crisis Telegraph

British factories hit by Trump’s tariffs mayhem cut exports to US The Times

Palestine Action Group plans march against Isaac Herzog’s visit despite protest restrictions Guardian

Israel v. The Resistance

The Truth About Gaza’s Death Toll – Part 2: A Gross Undercount Feroze Sidhwa

War postponed Julian Macfarlane

US surprised by Iran’s attempted capture of oil tanker; drone flies near warship Janta Ka Reporter, YouTube

Will Trump Accept Iran’s Terms? Larry Johnson. The US is not agreement capable. Trump tore up the JCPOA. Israel will also never give up on its Iran destruction plans and still has enormous sway in the Beltway. The purpose of any deal would be to lull Iran into a state of complacency to facilitate yet another attack.

Important. Click through for detail:

U.S. Sanctions on Iran Failed—So Why Do They Continue? American Conservative. resilc: “Because sadistic Israel wants them.”

New Not-So-Cold War

Europe Today: Russia strikes Kyiv as peace talks continue in Abu Dhabi Euronews

Ukraine – ‘Security Guarantee’ Details – Why The Energy Ceasefire Ended Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)

Russia ready to respond to any US weapons deployment in Greenland: Ryabkov Aljazeera

How Europe cobbled together a Russian government-in-exile Anti-Spiegel via machine translation (Micael T)

Imperial Collapse Watch

The Predatory Hegemon Stephen Walt, Foreign Affairs

Fifty Years Ago, the Supreme Court Said Money Is Speech Jacobin (Chuck L)

UN risks ‘imminent financial collapse’, secretary general warns BBC

Trump 2.0

Trump Team to Hold Daily Meetings on Getting Revenge New Republic (resilc)

Trump is FURIOUS Over MORE MASS RESIGNATIONS Talking Feds with Henry Litman, YouTube

Rebirth of the madman theory? Unpredictability isn’t what it was when it comes to foreign policy The Conversation (Kevin W)

US homebuilders working on plan to develop as many as 1 million ‘Trump Homes,’ Bloomberg News reports Reuters (Kevin W)

L’affaire Epstein

Clintons agree to testify on Epstein as vote looms to hold them in contempt of Congress BBC

Epstein and Ukraine: a match made in hell RT (Kevin W)

Epstein Occupied A Structural Position, So Who Has Replaced Him? Ian Welsh (Micael T)

ICE Rampage

Reverse Palantir: Inside The Online War to Identify ICE Agents (Exclusive) Migrant Insider. Important.

How to Film ICE Wired (resilc)

US judge dissolves DHS shooting evidence order, Noem pledges body cameras Reuters (Paul R)

Montreal Canadiens Under Self-Imposed Lockdown Before Minneapolis Game New Republic (resilc)

Democrats Suck. I am retiring “Democrats en déshabillé as far too charitable

Democrats shrug off demands to continue shutdown, block ICE funds Axois

GOP Clown Car

Dan Crenshaw’s Second Amendment Clip Backfires After Disastrous Town Hall Egberto

Our No Longer Free Press

Mr. Market is Edgy

Asian software stocks plunge after U.S. peers decline on fears over AI-led disruption CNBC

AI

The Math on AI Agents Doesn’t Add Up Wired (resilc)

SpaceX bails out xAI in mega-deal — here’s what it means for Tesla electrek (Paul R)

AI Giants’ Bond Surge Sparks Market Stability Fears Chosun

I Visited the ‘Pornhub’ for AI — And It’s More Terrifying Than Funny Safoura Jolfaei (Micael T)

The Bezzle

The Crypto-Hoarding Strategy Is Unraveling Wall Street Journal. We warned about this when Saylor first got wobbly….

Animal Spirits Joe Costello

Tether retreats from $20bn funding ambitions after investor pushback Financial Times. No archived version yet.

Class Warfare

Meditations On A Delivery Robot Steering To Avoid A Homeless Man On The Sidewalk Caitlin Johnstone (Kevin W)

Antidote du jour (via):

A bonus (Li):

A second bonus:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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5 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “Trump Team to Hold Daily Meetings on Getting Revenge”

    Now this is a strange one. There was a report a coupla months ago that the Trump regime was going to wreck vengeance on his enemies the first six months of his Presidency and then get on with domestic policies. But here there will be daily meetings with Bondi to get revenge on his enemies. I wonder if that will include new enemies as well? As an example, Trump has been on the warpath over Thomas Massie and Trump being Trump, decided to attack Massie’s new wife as a left wing “flamethrower” because of course you attack the family members of your enemies. Massie shut him down when he stated that his wife had actually voted for Trump – three times – but it seems that Trump will go feral at the slightest criticism of himself or anyone that tells him no. I can only imagine that the floor of the White House is now covered in egg shells.

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  2. ocypode

    Xi Jinping on the Chinese Financial System Karl Sanchez. In a bit of synchronicity. Chuck L, who sent the tweet above, asked if Xi had been reading Hudson. Sanchez pinged Hudson for his take. Hudson pointed out, among other things, that China, and Xi was following that policy, was not taxing land to prevent rentierism and also gave preference to US-trained, as in neoliberalized, economic students.

    On that note, it’s kind of shocking how strong orthodox economics is in China. There are Marxists and other kinds of heterodox economists, but they seem to be just as marginalized (if not more!) than in the rest of the world. I think what gives the Chinese their edge in general is that the government can force finance to obey through less usual means, something which is impossible in the West (where the contrary occurs, i.e. finance forces society and the government to do its bidding). I guess the economy doesn’t need much help from economists to work, but they can make a mess of things if given the opportunity, which would not bode well.

    (On a random point, I recall once seeing some discussion about how finance bros were not appealing on the dating scene in China, which made it less attractive there. Might have some influence too? As in attracting people who are genuinely interested in financial plumbing as opposed to any opportunist that smells good profits;)

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  3. Vicky Cookies

    Re: Behind ICE list from Migrant insider:

    I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I understand the desire to Do Something, as it’s often put here, about ICE, and conceivably something like this could work as a counterforce to the incentives DHS is putting behind recruitment. On the other hand, AI-powered facial recognition, through the additional layer of masks, is a) dystopian and wrong, and b) unreliable, especially when dealing with nonwhite faces, and many ICE and CBP agents are Latino. Would you be okay with this being used as evidence against you in court?

    Ultimately, those who want to play a part in resistance to this deportation push will have to come to terms with the fact that we have a legal framework within which noncitizens have very few rights, if really any, and contribute to changing that reality. It’s a feature of nation-states, but there could be amnesty (as there has been in the past), decriminalization, &c. None of it is very likely in the current political moment, but the hysteria from both poles of the debate doesn’t help. One thing activists can ask ourselves is how actions will be perceived and used by opponents and sympathizers.

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  4. eg

    U.S. Sanctions on Iran Failed—So Why Do They Continue?

    Of a piece with Biden’s response to a journalist’s query as to the efficacy of the initial American strikes on Ansarallah during Operation Prosperity Guardian (🙄):

    “When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis?” Biden said in an exchange with reporters in Washington, D.C. “No. Are they going to continue? Yes.”

    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss …

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  5. boots

    I would like to see the commentariat’s discussion of the pope’s major new message on A.I. (especially chatbots), to consider its use, impact, and framing. I wonder if it will impact policy or advocacy in heavily roman catholic countries, spur a response from other denominations, or if it can be used to shame i.e. Vance?

    It is called “Preserving Human Voices and Faces,” and was delivered 24 January for the 60th World Day of Social Communications.

    https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/messages/communications/documents/20260124-messaggio-comunicazioni-sociali.html

    The argument begins:

    Our faces and voices are unique, distinctive features of every person; they reveal a person’s own unrepeatable identity and are the defining elements of every encounter with others. The ancients understood this well. To define the human person, the ancient Greeks used the word “face” (prósōpon), because it expresses etymologically what is before one’s gaze, the place of presence and relationship. The Latin term “person” (from per-sonare), on the other hand, evokes the idea of sound: not just any sound, but the unmistakable sound of someone’s voice.

    Faces and voices are sacred. God, who created us in his image and likeness, gave them to us when he called us to life through the Word he addressed to us. This Word resounded down the centuries through the voices of the prophets, and then became flesh in the fullness of time.[…]

    From the moment of creation, God wanted man and woman to be his interlocutors, and, as Saint Gregory of Nyssa explained, he imprinted on our faces a reflection of divine love, so that we may fully live our humanity through love. Preserving human faces and voices, therefore, means preserving this mark, this indelible reflection of God’s love.[…] Each of us possesses an irreplaceable and inimitable vocation, that originates from our own lived experience and becomes manifest through interaction with others.

    If we fail in this task of preservation, digital technology threatens to alter radically some of the fundamental pillars of human civilization that at times are taken for granted. By simulating human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, consciousness and responsibility, empathy and friendship, the systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere with information ecosystems, but also encroach upon the deepest level of communication, that of human relationships.

    The challenge, therefore, is not technological, but anthropological. Safeguarding faces and voices ultimately means safeguarding ourselves.

    The rest of the statement is very good, I think, but the opening salvo is an argument I hadn’t heard before, and one with some serious theological import, including possibly for Muslims.

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