Miscellaneous News

_killuminati_

Captain
Registered Member
According to the mails, there were many Russian women and rich people Epstein contacted with, or groomed. There are no ways the Russian intelligence didn't find about the island long time ago. I would be surprised if Putin didn't have videos.
Russian is the 2nd most spoken language in Israel. Lot of Israelis (and Jews in America) migrated from former Russian lands. Lot of current Russian elite are Jewish. And, many (if not most of the) Bolshevik leaders were Jewish. Current prime minister of Russia, and most likely candidate of succession to Putin - Mikhail Mishustin - is also Jewish. Russia's involvement in Israel is very deep rooted.
 

Sardaukar20

Major
Registered Member

Youth support puts Japan’s Sanae Takaichi on track for landslide​

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The handbag she carries is sold out, her pink pen has gone viral and even her favourite snacks are in hot demand: Japan’s 64-year-old leader Sanae Takaichi has sparked an unlikely youth-led craze that could propel her to a big election win.

Polls suggest sanakatsu, roughly translated as “sanamania”, can help give Japan’s first female prime minister a decisive mandate in Sunday’s general election and unleash the spending plans she has promised will jolt the country’s moribund economy.

Backed by her personal popularity, her ruling coalition could capture as many as 300 seats in the 465-seat lower house, polls this week showed, a remarkable turnaround given her predecessor resigned after losing control of both chambers in ballots over the last 15 months.

What’s perhaps even more surprising is the appeal of the staunchly conservative leader with voters under 30, estimated by one recent poll at over 90 per cent. Her overall popularity stands at around 60 per cent.

Takanori Kobayashi, director at Hamano, the company that makes the US$900 black leather bag that Takaichi regularly totes, says he has been stunned by the young people clamouring to buy the item on a nine-month backlog.

“The bag is usually bought by people in their forties or fifties,” Kobayashi said at the company’s factory in Nagano, central Japan, where press clippings of the prime minister are pinned to a notice board.

“But since it became well known, probably through social media, we have seen a lot of interest from customers in their twenties and thirties.”

There has been a similar online buzz around the pink ballpoint pen she uses to scribble notes in parliament and the shrimp rice crackers she was seen clutching while riding a train.

Takaichi has built a social media following that dwarfs those of her rivals, both inside her ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and across the opposition. She has about 2.6 million followers on X, compared with around 64,000 for Yoshihiko Noda, leader of the main opposition party.

Popular approach​

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Takaichi’s personal approval ratings are almost double that of the LDP, traditionally a male-dominated party, according to a poll released on Monday by public broadcaster NHK.

Her viral posts stand out in Japan’s usually staid politics, such as clips of her drumming to the hit song “Golden” from Netflix’s Kpop Demon Hunters with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, or serenading Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni with “Happy Birthday” in Italian.

When Takaichi announced the snap poll on January 19, she cast the vote as a de facto referendum on her leadership and policies, including fiscal expansion and plans to strengthen defences to counter China’s growing military might.

“Can you entrust the management of the nation to Sanae Takaichi? I ask the people directly to judge,” she said.

She surprised voters and politicians with an election “to get an endorsement in a way that is actually rather presidential”, said Koichi Nakano, a political-science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Takaichi’s approach has won over Haruka Okuyama, a 32-year-old office worker who attended her first campaign rally in Akihabara, an anime and gaming culture hub in central Tokyo.

“A lot of young people follow social media these days, and I think there’s been an increase in conservative thinking among them,” Okuyama said, pulling a magazine from her bag that she said she bought because Takaichi was on the cover.

Perched atop a campaign truck outside Akihabara station, Takaichi spoke about her modest upbringing outside Japan’s political elite, and covered topics from the cost of hair salons to controlling immigration.

Takaichi, whose mother was a police officer and father worked at a car company, has said she has drawn inspiration from Margaret Thatcher, the daughter of a shopkeeper who became Britain’s first female and longest-serving modern prime minister.

“She has a clear, decisive way of speaking,” said Takeo Fujimura, a 24-year-old clerical worker who had volunteered to hand out paper Japanese flags at the event. “She communicates in a bright, positive way and I think that energy resonates with young people.”

Not everyone at the rally had made up their mind.

Tomomi Kawamura, a 37-year-old housewife, said she admired Takaichi’s social media savvy, but was undecided on who to vote for. Rising prices were her main worry, she said, echoing concerns among other voters that the yen’s slide – triggered in part by Takaichi’s promised fiscal largesse – is fuelling inflation.

“Prices are so high,” Kawamura said. “I want something done about that.”

Some analysts question whether enough of the youth the prime minister has attracted will turn out to deliver the landslide that polls predict she will win on Sunday. Younger people have historically been less likely to vote than older generations that have underpinned the LDP’s near-unbroken post-war rule.

But even a modest win would underline how her personal appeal had single-handedly revived the fortunes of a party whose long grip on power was slipping fast, said David Boling, a principal at The Asia Group, a strategic advisory firm.

“The power of her personality seems to be transcending politics,” he said.



I HOPE JAPAN GET WHAT'S COMING TO THEM
Doesn't matter how popular Sanae Takaichi is with the youth, the youth in Japan are not the dominant demographics anymore.

In any case, if the majority of Japanese voters gives her a strong mandate, then that's better for me. China is already taking it's gloves off. Just bring it on. China will take care of Japan just like how it took care of Separatist Taiwan, South Korea, US, India, Australia, and others. The Japanese public will only have themselves to blame for the hardships that is to come.
 

TPenglake

Junior Member
Registered Member
Chinese unicorns founded since 2010 now generate more annual revenues than their American counterparts.
You'd think a German would know better than to knock China's Unicorns for individually not being as high value as American ones. His own country Germany has less Fortune 500 companies than even France or for that matter now Japan, but still manages to have a bigger economy than both due to its dominance in advanced manufactering shouldered by its army of mid-sized firms. China's advantage to compensate for its lack of VC funding compared to American firms has always been to deploy at scale.
 

pmc

Colonel
Registered Member
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Anyone read this report on last year’s Operation Sindoor? I smell a strong dose of Jai Hind here. I do not recall any confirmed losses of Pakistani aircraft but open source support the fact that India lost at least one Rafale, one Mirage, and one MiG 29.

However, it is true that Pakistan’s air defence performed poorly against India’s air strikes. Not sure if Pakistan had as many as ten batteries of HQ-9/16 per this report. But 10 batteries should have given Islamabad pretty robust air defence, especially the HQ-16 should theoretically be able to counter the waves of Brahmas and SCALP.
waves of Brahmos and Scalp. I doubt it. there is not single intercept of Onyx missile in Ukraine and India will eventually get upgrades.
this is direction of upgrades dealing with tactical missiles like HIMARs and Storm Shadow.
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November 28, 2022
The MiG-31BM high-altitude interceptor fighter is designed to intercept and destroy airborne targets, including cruise and ballistic missiles, at extremely low, medium, and high altitudes in both normal and adverse weather conditions," the Russian Ministry of Defense website states.
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Izvestia: MiG-31 pilots have learned to intercept a hypersonic target at an altitude of 16,000 meters.
 

bsdnf

Senior Member
Registered Member
In my view, Takashi's JIBA campaign has fully absorbed Trump's MAGA strategy.

Japan's youth are like the MAGA movement in 2016, neither understand nor care about how politics works. The chaotic reality has jolted them from long-term political apathy, and intuition (rather than experience) tells them they need a political leader who can “make a ruckus.” Don't overestimate Japan's political education. Middle-aged and elderly people in society still cling to a shocking naivety and self-deception about international politics, let alone the youth raised in the Reiwa era.

The LDP's propaganda is overwhelming. Takashi's campaign video quickly reached 100 million views on YouTube, clearly the result of paid promotion. But regardless, some will always believe in herd mentality, especially in Japan. Some of Takagi's statements and actions, which seem inexplicable to outsiders, have been amplified through social media and opinion leaders' dog whistles to their audiences. Interviews already show Japanese youth (especially women) engaging with political issues for the first time, idolizing Takagi like a celebrity. I see no other party possessing the capacity to counter this level of mobilization.
 

Randomuser

Captain
Registered Member
You'd think a German would know better than to knock China's Unicorns for individually not being as high value as American ones. His own country Germany has less Fortune 500 companies than even France or for that matter now Japan, but still manages to have a bigger economy than both due to its dominance in advanced manufactering shouldered by its army of mid-sized firms. China's advantage to compensate for its lack of VC funding compared to American firms has always been to deploy at scale.
Lately the stock markets have been suffering because tech firms especially AI ones have absurb valuations despite not showing how they can make enough money to justify them. In the future we could see some real pain when the bubble bursts. So at this point people should be aware of what happens when your valuations are too high.
 
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