IndustryStandard

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KYIV, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pored over a once-classified map of vast deposits of rare earths and other critical minerals during an interview with Reuters on Friday, part of a push to appeal to Donald Trump's penchant for a deal.

The U.S. president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine's war with Russia, said on Monday he wanted Ukraine to supply the U.S. with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort.

"If we are talking about a deal, then let's do a deal, we are only for it," Zelenskiy said, emphasising Ukraine's need for security guarantees from its allies as part of any settlement. Ukraine floated the idea of opening its critical minerals to investment by allies last autumn, as it presented a "victory plan" that sought to put it in the strongest position for talks and force Moscow to the table.

 

BLANCHARDVILLE, Wisconsin, Feb 8 (Reuters) - A dead-end dirt road cutting through rural Wisconsin leads to a pasture dotted with shaggy-coated Highland cattle, fluffy Icelandic sheep and a vintage Airstream trailer that farmer Brit Thompson turned into an Airbnb to capitalize on an explosion of urbanites looking to spend time in the countryside.

Her guests, mostly Chicago-area professionals, offer a steady flow of income in an increasingly unstable agricultural economy.

Thompson, who also raises animals for meat at her farm, Pink River Ranch , opens new tab, is one of many farmers turning to the $4.5 billion agricultural tourism industry, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, and offering activities and overnight stays as consumer demand for rural experiences grows and farm income declines.

 

Channel 12 Israel has aired a video showing an Israeli military officer issuing instructions to his soldiers to withdraw from the Netzarim Corridor.

“We are preparing for the final exit from the Netzarim. The order of exit is the same as the entry,” the Israeli army officer says.

“We will return here, do not worry. Hamas is preparing, but we are also preparing. We will return and we will recover all the kidnapped. God willing, the Trump plan will go into effect and we will return to settlement here and build all the settlements. Please confirm receipt.”

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

You do not have information. Your comment was a ramble of incoherent and unconnected actors.

If you think Russia was controlling Joe Biden who was sending 5 gazillion dollars in bombs to keep Israel's genocide going, you might want to rethink a lot of things.

 

Fakhri Barghouti winced in pain as an ecstatic crowd lifted him onto their shoulders alongside his son Shadi, who was freed from an Israeli prison on Saturday as part of a Gaza ceasefire agreement.

The night before, Israeli forces stormed his family home in the occupied West Bank village of Kobar, warning him not to celebrate his son’s release and assaulting him, he said.

“They entered after midnight, smashed everything, took me into a side room and beat me before leaving,” Barghouti told AFP. “I was taken to the hospital, where they found that I had a broken rib.”

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world -2 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Or wait listen to this crazy idea: Palestinians were locked in a concentration camp and fought back!

Here is a great video made by an Israeli about what happened. https://youtu.be/Pt_1k7nSv1M

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Steve Witkoff negotiated it.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Let's not start twisting history. The ceasefire came directly after the Trump envoy. Giving any credit for it to Biden is insane cope.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Imagine saying that line unironically. Serious Nazi vibes here at .world.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Does the kernel not need a lot of memory unsafe Rust code? There is a way to bypass the safety nets and I heard that for stuff like kernel development that is necessity.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world -5 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

Hamas imo kidnapped those people due to KGB or other encouragement, then Israel/Netanyahu refused to rescue them and used them as proxy hostages against Biden to secure money because they had a deal with Trump and Putin

 

The United States has announced the approval of the sale of more than $7.4bn in bombs, missiles and related equipment to Israel, which has used American-made weapons to devastating effect during the war in Gaza.

The state department has signed off on the sale of $6.75bn in bombs, guidance kits and fuses, in addition to $660m in Hellfire missiles, according to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA).

The proposed sale of the bombs “improves Israel’s capability to meet current and future threats, strengthen its homeland defense, and serves as a deterrent to regional threats”, the DSCA said in a statement.

 

The United States has demanded that Hezbollah must not be part of Lebanon’s government.

Washington’s Deputy Middle East Envoy Morgan Ortagus said on Friday after meeting Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun that she was “not afraid” of the armed group “because they’ve been defeated militarily”. However, she said that the US has made its continued role in the government a “red line”.

Later on Friday, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Raad, slammed Ortagus’s comments as “blatant interference” in Lebanon’s affairs.

Ortagus is the first senior US official to visit Lebanon since US President Donald Trump took office and since Aoun was elected president.

Her visit comes amid a stalled cabinet formation process in Lebanon, where government posts are apportioned on sectarian lines. Hezbollah’s ally, the Amal Movement, has insisted on approving all Shia Muslim ministers, keeping the process in deadlock.

 

A 10-year-old Palestinian boy has died in hospital more than a week after an Israeli soldier shot him in the occupied West Bank. Saddam Rajab was wounded on January 28 during a military operation in Tulkarm.

Israeli forces detained an ambulance transporting him into hospital and held his father in custody for an hour. The soldier reportedly boasted about shooting him.

Good ban from .ml. If only our mods were this based.

I have not followed recent developments much but I recall the new president partially aborting the new headscarf law. https://apnews.com/article/iran-mandatory-headscarf-hijab-law-protests-26e6015d6e47b18238f0ac4c08c4d33a

Whether this was followed up on I do not know.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

US actions are partially the reason though. The population could have changed if it was not being actively convinced not to do so.

Instead of moderates, hardliners became more popular because of the constant US threat, refusing to normalize, and not holding up its end of deals.

Iran has a long history of US and European meddling and stealing their oil since 1953. You might not understand but they have plenty of reason to fear the US. And they have been betrayed many times when they let their guard down.

It would be akin to asking why Ukrainians do not love Russian culture after Russia invaded their country and bombed them.

 

Trump presented his ethnic cleansing plan as if he had the best interests of the Palestinians at heart. As if he was saving them from a disaster-prone earthquake zone, not from a genocidal neighbour he counts as Washington’s closest ally. His comments were greeted with shock and horror in western and Arab capitals. Everyone is distancing themselves from his blatant backing for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s population.

But these are the same leaders who kept silent through 15 months of Israel’s levelling of Gaza’s homes, hospitals, schools, universities, libraries, government buildings, mosques, churches and bakeries. Then, they spoke of Israel’s right to "defend itself" even as Israel caused so much damage the United Nations warned it would take up to 80 years to rebuild the territory - that is, four generations.

What did they think would happen at the end of the wrecking spree they armed and fully supported? Did they imagine the people of Gaza could survive for years without homes, or hospitals, or schools, or water systems, or electricity? They knew this was the outcome: destitute Palestinians would either risk death in the ruins or be forced to move out.

And western politicians not only let it happen, they told us it was "proportionate", it was necessary. They smeared anyone who dissented, anyone who called for a ceasefire, anyone who went on a protest march as an antisemite and a Jew hater.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (4 children)

They tried to suck less and then America put a knife in their back. Which is not very encouraging.

 

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran's supreme leader said Friday that negotiations with America “are not intelligent, wise or honorable” after President Donald Trump floated nuclear talks with Tehran.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also suggested that “there should be no negotiations with such a government,” but stopped short of issuing a direct order not to engage with Washington.

Khamenei's remarks upend months of signals from Tehran to the United States that it wanted to negotiate over its rapidly advancing nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of crushing economic sanctions worth billions of dollars.

Khamenei noted that Trump unilaterally withdrew from the earlier nuclear deal under which Iran drastically limited its enrichment of uranium and overall stockpile of the material, in exchange for crushing sanctions being removed.

“The Americans did not uphold their end of the deal,” Khamenei said. “The very person who is in office today tore up the agreement. He said he would, and he did.”

 

Once again the market has been swamped by over-production in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world's dominant source of the battery metal.

But while it was an artisanal mining surge that caused the bust of 2018-2019, this time around it's China's giant CMOC Group (603993.SS)

The company more than doubled its output of cobalt last year, pumping nearly 60,000 tons of extra metal into a global market of just over 200,000 tons.

It doesn't help that cobalt's bright new energy narrative is starting to unravel as the electric vehicle (EV) sector evolves.

Cobalt's demand profile has been transformed by its use in EV batteries but the metal's prospects look a little less stellar than a couple of years ago.

The EV revolution is rapidly evolving. The Chinese market is shifting towards greater sales of hybrids, which need a smaller battery than a pure electric vehicle, and towards lithium-iron-phosphate battery chemistry which needs no cobalt at all.

Western EV manufacturers are still largely sticking with nickel-cobalt-manganese cathode chemistry but while Chinese EV sales rose by 36% last year, North American sales growth was a modest 9% and the European market actually contracted.

 

Israel is in last place in the Nation Brands Index, which was conducted in July-August 2024 by polling 40,000 people in 20 countries. The index ranks 50 countries and marks six aspects of country brand strength: policy and governance, culture, people and society, exports, migration and investment, and tourism.

The study notes that Generation Z overwhelmingly rejects Israel, giving it the lowest possible scores across all parameters. The report also observes that there is a de facto boycott of Israeli products and that Israeli exports are at high risk, with a significant aversion to products labeled "Made in Israel."

Israel, the report finds, is associated with global instability and according to ranking sentiments, Israel is perceived as part of the "forces of chaos" rather than those contributing to global stability. Even Israel's innovative strength does not save it in this index, and it ranks below most developed European countries and even below the UAE.

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