More from @althecat

Alastair Thompson

@althecat

May 4

The news that the TPLF are back in Alamata is chilling I hope the competing reports that the Govt FDRE has told them to withdraw are correct. According to what I have heard it is getting messy.

I posted 3 stories on Alamata and this one brings them together a bit. With rumours and disputed claims about a return of TPLF to Wolkait flying around the fear of more war coming is rising in the North of Ethiopia.

Private sources tell me that TPLF is overreaching, stirring up trouble again, and the absence of a clear public statement from the Govt clarifying precisely what is agreed or not at all helpful.

Worthy and unworthy Ethiopians via @abrennowabren.org/worthy-and-unw…

2/ this is the main story I wrote on Alamata back in 2022 after visiting immediately after the COHA Cessation of Hostilities Agreement was concluded in Pretoria.

It’s primarily a report about a huge mass grave on the right hand side on the Road heading north out of the city.

The story tells you what happened and what the locals in the town told me, and about the evidence they provided me of this as I left I did a more extensive interview with them into the broader story of what had happened in the city over the long periods of TPLF occupation. And leading up to the war breaking out in 2020

The idea that TPLF are back there again gives me chills. The mass grave which you can see in the story linked below is only a fraction of what the Alamata citizens have been through.

m.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2211…

3/ This report from Arbren reports on the public source reports on what has recently happened.

The TPLF Military commanders remarks claiming that he was about to set up a Govt. Administration in Wolkait are the biggest problem here, but appear to for now just be just another typically brutal and reckless psyop.

That said the possibility of the TPLF rearming themselves, or being rearmed again by their allies with smuggled arms is definitely plausible and as a result the people of Alamata and Wollo to its south have lots of good reasons to be worried that this could escalate again.

abren.org/tplf-forces-pu…

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Alastair Thompson

@althecat

Mar 29

This is an interesting line of questioning here from Journalist @samhusseini which perhaps points to the substantive legal sophistry underlying the U.S. position on Gaza, in particular wrt the legality of wholesale slaughter y Israel of Gaza’s civilian population with U.S. supplied weapons .

@samhusseini tries to get answer from @StateDept’s Matthew Miller
(again) , he has been seeking an unambiguous answer repeatedly on this question as to « whether the U.S. govt accepts that the 4th Geneva Convention rules apply in the Gaza Conflict.

Meanwhile the rule of international law seems to be catching up on the Israeli-US « axis of sophistry » as we can see here in an new additional ICJ ruling on the Gaza Genocide complaint which coincides with the passage of a binding UNSC Resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the conflict.

The most effective « Canary in the coal mine » in this drama from well before its initiation has been Francesca Albanese @FranceskAlbs.

Listen to her now.

Why? Because this crisis now stands on a knife edge. A window of hope for peace is now a little ajar, thanks to the combined weight of the UNSC ceasefire resolution and the progressing ICJ proceeding.

Albanese’s commitment, determination and enlightened investigation of the « Gaza War Palestine File » is peerless.

Her work began long before October 7th and this current obscene assault on the UN Charter, the rule of law and the « rules based order » which now engulfs the entire globe 🌍 in it’s implications.

This war, and Netanyahu’s impending attack on a concentrated starving population of well over 1 million souls is unprecedented, in its illegality as well as its possible consequences.

The entire world 🌍 is watching and praying and chanting and making offerings for peace. A peace that one man, an indicted financial and political criminal as well as a war criminal under investigation by the ICC over his role in both the settlements & the Great March of Return.

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Alastair Thompson

@althecat

Feb 22

An interesting report on Egypt 🇪🇬 ‘s response/practice when it comes to the shifting sands in international financial trading as a result of BRICS and the rise in the importance of the Yuan in particular for settling trade transactions.

At a practical level nations anticipating a loss in US dollar liquidity are increasingly hedging their bets on trade financing and broadening the quantity of trade in currencies other than the USD.

At a macro global level there is a high level of risk associated with these changes, principally because of the astronomical amount of US debt and deposits denominated in the USD.

The report shows that Egypt 🇪🇬 - a close U.S. ally is simultaneously seeking to be pragmatic about the threat this poses to its own economy by this expanding phenomena.

I have long considered that this « great unwinding » of the USD is the greatest threat to international economic conditions of my lifetime. I expect central bankers are having conniptions all over the planet at the moment.

Made in Egypt, sold in dollars goo.gl

Here is the original report I am referring to here. (See Quoted tweet).

What is happening now in global finance dwarfs the GFC of 2008 and its predecessor crises, the Asian Flue in the late 29th Century and the Dot Com Crash of the early 2000s.

The US Federal Reserve played a critical role in righting the great ship of global finance in those cases by providing liquidity. It is unclear whether they will be either willing or able to do so in the coming crises. Europe and China together need to consider how they can cooperate to address this coming crisis.

Critically the causes of this crisis are different and the War in Gaza is extremely important in relation to concerns about the Dollar and is driving the hoarding of USD liquidity by the super rich which is most probably one of the drivers of what is happening here.

P.S. India 🇮🇳 and OPEC likely also have an important role to play in addressing this coming crisis.

The simple truth is that USD Hegemony is unravelling and the impact of this is and will continue to be extremely destabilising globally in a manner unprecedented in the post WWII era.

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Alastair Thompson

@althecat

Jan 8

Lots of People have been raving to me about this amazing piece from @JohnJCampbell in the early summer. Just read it and OMG! Is it good or what.

NZ’s politics as we begin 2024 are febrile in a manner significantly beyond anything I have ever seen thanks to the bonkers agenda set out by the coalition govt that should not have been allowed to happen.

If you haven’t read this yet do so.1news.co.nz/2023/12/30/joh…

Justifiably the bit in the piece on former pm, Labour Leader @chrishipkins is excoriating, albeit in the relatively understated personal rhetorical tone in which @JohnJCampbell has achieved mastery.

“Labour’s vote almost halved in three years and their leader is talking about “vibe”.
“People don’t vote on a left-right continuum. They vote on the vibe of the campaign”, Chris Hipkins declared.
I’m not suggesting a hair shirt – Labour should be taking stock not doing penance. But some acknowledgement that they arrived at an election campaign without an actual campaign, might be useful.
If you’re having a sausage sizzle and you don’t have any sausages, that’s not a vibe issue. It’s that the central ingredient isn’t there.
Audrey Young asked Chris Hipkins what sort of Leader of the Opposition he wants to be. He talked about “highlighting how we would do things differently, and charting a different course”, which echoes David Lange’s belief that if you want to be elected you have to look like a government in waiting.
But then Chris Hipkins said, “you won’t see much of that in the first few months, because we need to take stock and we need to the opportunity to reflect and refresh.”
Good God. The first few months? (Is Labour on sabbatical?) By that stage the Government will be insisting that everyone called Wiremu change their name to William.”

Although it’s still early 2024 - and therefore not yet the time for such things - at least not for the political caucuses in NZ most of whom are at the beach most probably - it’s past time for a debate over @nzlabour Party leadership to begin imo. Chris Hipkins cannot remain in his leadership position. This is untenable and blocks the kind of cross party thinking/alliance on the left that is needed.

This far right extremist govt did not need to happen - a TPM/Green/Labour/NZF coalition would have had a majority of 7 - but @ChrisHipkins unilaterally (in another captains call) blocked this.

Had the left contested this post election by engaging with NZ First in discussions the divisive policy trajectory we are currently on might have been at least softened if not averted. A wide ranging public debate over the direction of NZ’s next Govt would have taken place and some of the extremism present in what we now see would have been watered down.

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