I mean as in Spy x Family. Everyone has a secret they hide from everyone else, even their closest people.

Do you think real life is like that?

Hamas has called on Israel to allow an impartial international investigation into its attack on 7 October 2023 and has rejected that it killed civilians or committed atrocities.

“The resistance did not target any hospital, school, or house of worship; it did not kill a single journalist or any member of ambulance crews. We challenge [Israel] to prove otherwise,” it said.

In the new document, Hamas said that “Western media and Zionist lobby groups” had launched a disinformation campaign about the events of the attack.

“The Israeli entity promoted a series of lies and fallacies about killing children and raping women, paving the way to proceed with an all-out genocide project that was pre-planned and aimed to erase Gaza from existence,” it said.

Palestinian group rejects accusations it committed atrocities and lays out motivation for attack two years ago in 42-page document

...

Hamas repeated previous assertions that killing civilians was against its “religion, morality and education; and we avoid it whenever we can”.

“The resistance did not target any hospital, school, or house of worship; it did not kill a single journalist or any member of ambulance crews. We challenge [Israel] to prove otherwise,” it said.

It added that media reports, including from Israeli outlets, have revealed that Israel’s military bombed areas in southern Israel where Israeli civilians were intermixed with Hamas fighters, in what Hamas said was an example of the Hannibal Directive.

Hamas called for an impartial investigation into civilian deaths on 7 October, as well as one into crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians, including the war on Gaza.

Founding father Benjamin Franklin secured the alliance with France that led to victory in the Revolutionary War, negotiated the Treaty of Paris ending said war, signed the Declaration of Independence and the U.S Constitution, discovered that lightning was electrical, invented bifocal glasses, wrote the famous Poor Richard’s Almanac, and ran newspapers.

He also had some thoughts on farting.

A survey of export firms published on Friday by the Finnish Chamber of Commerce indicates that most have high hopes for next year.

Nearly two-thirds of companies that responded to the poll expect exports to grow in 2026. That's up by six percentage points from a year ago, when six out of 10 said so. Expectations for the coming year are the most positive since 2022, when the question was first included in an annual corporate survey.

Last year, 11 percent of companies forecast that exports would decline, while now the corresponding figure was seven percent.

...

In particular, firms expect that Germany's planned 500-billion-euro investments in infrastructure, digitalisation and defence will drive exports in Finland as well. Last week, Germany launched an additional 30-billion-euro initiative to boost private investments, Reuters reports.

Some 44 percent of respondents said they expect to benefit from those investments.

"In particular, companies feel that their prospects are brightened by investments in the defence sector and the green transition," Päivi Pohjanheimo, Director of International Affairs at the Central Chamber of Commerce, said in a press release on Friday.

"The construction and defence sectors particularly believe that they will benefit from German investments," she added.

...

Hardly any firms said that they have moved operations or production to the United States as a result of President Donald Trump's tariffs policy. Instead, 80 percent of respondents said they are more interested in the EU market, with many expanding their European business due to the tariff policy.

...

"The answers clearly reflect the current geopolitical situation: the unpredictability of the United States is worrying export companies. Instead, respondents see the EU and Nordic countries as safe and increasingly important trading partners," said Pohjanheimo.

...

Me at the family dinner

Intro ML reading list

Stolen from r/MarxismMemes

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44341035

Web archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44340351

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[Putin said that the task] had been accomplished: inflation would end the year below 6%.

Yet the Central Bank undercut that narrative almost immediately. Contrary to expectations, it lowered the key rate from 16.5% to just 16%.

If inflation truly is below 6%, that implies a real interest rate of roughly 10% — among the highest in the world. Brazil, often cited as an outlier, sits at 9.2%, while Mexico at 5.3%. Turkey and Argentina, despite having interest rates of around 38% and 29% respectively, do not even make the list because inflation there is near or above those levels.

[Russia Central Bank Governor Elvira] Nabiullina’s remarks after this month's rate meeting seemed to support this. Inflation has declined, she said, but not sustainably. The 6% figure only appeared in weekly data, which is not a reliable basis for identifying trends. And although inflation fell in November, it rose in October.

And beginning in January, it is expected to accelerate again, driven by a higher value-added tax (VAT), now applied to a wider swath of businesses, and by another round of increases in utility tariffs.

...

Nabiullina, who once cloaked bad news in careful technocratic language, sounded increasingly like a Soviet official reciting a familiar formula: yes, there are shortcomings, but the strengths outweigh them. When all else fails, there is always the reassurance that the economy is “returning to a trajectory of balanced growth.”

In other words, the economy is shrinking — but it is shrinking according to plan.

...

The government’s long-term budget forecast was striking in two respects. First, its sheer horizon: projections extend to 2042. Second, its candor: the budget is expected to remain in deficit throughout that entire period.

Even here, Soviet habits are evident. Oil is optimistically forecast at $69 a barrel by 2031. Officials stress that oil revenues will gradually give way to tax income. Putin promised that the higher VAT is not permanent, though he did not say when it would end. One might reasonably suspect it will end in 2042.

The date itself feels telling. It invites a grim literary echo of Venedikt Yerofeyev and Vladimir Voinovich’s dystopian “Moscow 2042.” It is hard to believe the choice was accidental.

...

Then, too, Soviet decline was accompanied by triumphant propaganda. The language has changed, but not the function. Soon, Russians will be told daily how Ukrainian and European “militarism” obstructs Russia’s desire for peace. The euphemism of “forcing peace” requires no invention; it was tested long ago.

If this déjà vu is more than psychological, it is possible to sketch a timeline for how long the Russian economy will last. Oil prices collapsed in 1985. Though the Soviet Union survived until 1991, its economy became effectively nonviable by 1989.

...

But the Soviet example suggests that public patience can end suddenly and collectively. Military spending now stands at 7.3% of GDP, according to a presentation by Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, a figure comparable to late-Soviet levels.

...

Even if fighting were to end, Russia will be paying for this war for years, not least through high interest costs on government bonds. This year alone, the state issued nearly 8 trillion rubles’ ($102.5 billion) worth.

Meanwhile, the government is already propping up struggling sectors ranging from carmakers and aircraft manufacturers to railways, coal, metals and oil.

Even defense enterprises are faltering. Workers at the Kingisepp Machine-Building Plant, a strategic supplier to the Navy, recently complained of unpaid wages. The company’s director responded angrily, accusing them of petty self-interest at a time of national struggle.

...

Whether this story concludes suddenly and almost bloodlessly, as the Soviet collapse did, or drags on in a long and painful decline is impossible to know. History does not repeat itself exactly.

But when economic narratives begin to sound this familiar, it is hard not to start counting the years.

Web archive link

Venezuela has said it has carried out its largest release of political prisoners this year, claiming to have freed 99 people detained for taking part in protests after the 2024 election, widely believed to have been stolen by the dictator Nicolás Maduro, as it comes under increasing military pressure from the US.

Civil society organisations have treated the news with caution and stressed that the releases were insufficient, noting that at least 900 political prisoners remain in the country.

The Maduro regime refuses to acknowledge the existence of political prisoners and said it had freed, in the early hours of Christmas Day, 99 “citizens who were deprived of their liberty for their participation in acts of violence and incitement to hatred following the electoral process of 28 July 2024”.

It framed the move as an expression of its alleged commitment to “peace” and its “unrestricted respect for human rights”, at a moment when the country is facing what it described as an “imperialist siege and multilateral aggression” by the US.

Poland’s Energy Regulatory Office (URE) has concluded the country’s first-ever auction for offshore wind power, awarding contracts to three projects with a combined capacity of 3.4 gigawatts (GW).

The agreements provide for guaranteed prices for electricity produced from the wind farms, with the state making up the costs if prices are lower but receiving excess revenues if they are higher.

...

The auction was seen as a crucial step in ensuring the viability of Poland’s nascent offshore wind sector. The country currently has no offshore wind farms in operation, with the first – Orlen’s Baltic Power, which did not take part in the auction – scheduled to come online next year.

...

Following its successful completion, Poland’s was the largest such auction anywhere in Europe this year, exceeding the combined total of Germany and France, note analysts at Pekao, a bank.

...

The three projects that reached such agreements in the auction were state energy giant Orlen’s Baltic East, with a capacity of 900 megawatts (MW); the 975-MW Baltica 9 project of another state firm, PGE; and Bałtyk I, a 1,560 MW project developed by private Polish firm Polenergia and Norway’s Equinor.

Web archive link

Cattle ranchers are making less money in the US despite beef prices at an all-time high. In the meantime, Trump started importing beef from Argentina to lower beef prices, but only achieved to lower cattle prices.

Trump supporting cattle ranchers weren't happy

Please don't tell me "see a therapist" I know that already.