Bulletins and News Discussion for May 26th to June 1st, 2025 - Sanctions Continue To Fail, More At 11
Image is of a solar park in Cuba, donated last year by China, sourced from this article.
To be honest, I don't have much to say about ongoing geopolitical events that hasn't already been said in previous threads (e.g. with India/Pakistan, Trump/Putin, and of course occupied Palestine), so this is more of a "news roundup" preamble for this week.
As we all know, the US (and the imperial core generally) has only three permitted international actions: sanctions, color revolution, and war. None of these have been going well lately, but sanctions are in particularly dire straits right now. Three examples from the last week or so:
The EU is on its 17th sanctions package, apparently, which is surprising, as I thought they were on their 76th or something. It apparently targets Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers, but I don't think anybody actually gives a shit because we all know it won't achieve anything, so, moving on...
The head of Nvidia (as well as many others) have come out and said that the US chip export controls on China have failed, remarking that China's internal motivations to develop alternatives are strong and proceeding rapidly, especially as China's number of skilled scientists is only growing. Nvidia has said that they had a 95% share of China's AI chip market in 2020 or so, but now they only have 50%.
Lastly, an interesting one: Iran has received its first set of railway shipment of solar panels from China, and there is hope for accelerating shipments of even more products. Myself and many others have predicted a decoupling of Iran from the West and towards China and Russia (especially if any Western-built product could have Israeli devices implanted into them, such as with the pager terrorist attack on Lebanon's doctors), and having a strong link with China will be a necessary step for Iran and their allies to continue their offensives against Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to confirm Wednesday that his military forces killed Mohammed Sinwar, the understood leader of Hamas’s armed wing. Speaking before Parliament, Netanyahu listed the names of top Hamas leaders that Israeli forces killed since the start of the war. “We have killed tens of thousands of terrorists. We killed [Mohammed] Deif, [Ismail] Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Sinwar,” he said.
Here’s what to know about Mohammed Sinwar and his apparent death: No confirmation from Hamas. There has been no confirmation from the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group, which is the governing body in Gaza, in response to Israeli claims of Mohammed Sinwar’s death.
May 13 airstrike: Israeli news outlets reported that Mohammed Sinwar was targeted in a strike earlier this month that hit what Israeli officials said was Hamas’s command center, located beneath a hospital in Khan Younis.
At the time, the Israeli military declined to comment on whether Mohammed was targeted or killed. At a press conference last week, however, Netanyahu commented on the reports. “We have eliminated tens of thousands of terrorists. We eliminated the arch-murderers — Deif, Yahya Sinwar and apparently Muhammad Sinwar as well,” Netanyahu said May 21 in a translated statement provided by his office.
Brother of infamous former Hamas leader
Mohammed Sinwar is the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the infamous former Hamas leader who is often credited as the mastermind behind the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which left nearly 1,200 Israelis dead and 251 people taken hostage in Gaza. The attack precipitated the broad retaliatory invasion of the Palestinian territory.
Israeli forces killed Yahya Sinwar in October 2024 and have killed much of Hamas’s leadership since the war started. Mohammed Sinwar is said the be among a small group of top Hamas commanders who knew in advance about the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, according to The Associated Press.
Long history with Hamas
Mohammed Sinwar joined Hamas with his older brother in the late 1980s when the group was initially founded as part of the Muslim Brotherhood. The younger Sinwar joined the military wing of the group, known as the Qassam Brigades. Mohammed Sinwar, born in 1975, was a teenager at the time. His family had been driven out of modern-day Israel during the 1948 war, and he was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp.
Mohammed Sinwar became a member of the so-called joint chiefs of staff, working closely with the longtime commander Deif, who was killed in a strike last year. And he participated in the First Intifada, as well as several other operations, including the 2006 attack that led to the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Historically, Nasrallah specifically, the IOF do spill the beans earlier than the resistance. Hopefully they’re wrong
I thought we knew about this already? Or did we know they were targeting him but it wasn't confirmed or something?
I feel like I read about this last month but time is weird lately
I think it was that Saudi Arabia announced that this had happened, but this is Israel announcing