Donald Trump said Thursday that Mojtaba was "unacceptable," and Israel has vowed to target any declared successor to Khamenei.

A statement from the Assembly of Experts — the panel of Shiite clerics responsible under Iranian law for choosing the country’s top leader — said Mojtaba Khamenei had been selected as the third leader of the Islamic Republic, according to reports from IRIB state TV and the Fars, Tasnim and ISNA news agencies.

President Donald Trump told Axios last week the choice would be "unacceptable" and suggested he wanted to hand-pick a new supreme leader, a process usually overseen by Iran's clerics.

“They are wasting their time. Khamenei's son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment," he said. "Khamenei's son is unacceptable to me."

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7675602

Archived link

Canada and Australia are tying together two of the world’s largest retirement systems through a new investment pact that aims to push more pension capital into both markets.

More than a dozen Canadian and Australian pension giants have entered a first-of-its-kind memorandum of understanding (MOU) under the Canadian-Australian Pension Funds Investment Initiative (CAP Invest Initiative).

CPP Investments said the initiative asks leading pension investors to make a voluntary commitment “to facilitate dialogue on investment environments and policy barriers to generate solutions that unlock greater opportunities for value creation.”

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Under the arrangement, funds will cooperate to channel more pension capital into opportunities in both markets.

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Signatories include AustralianSuper, which manages A$410bn (US$289bn), and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, with $781bn (US$571bn) in assets, along with eight other major Canadian funds.

Canada operates the world’s second-largest pension system, while Australia’s A$4.5tn pool is No. 4, and Canada’s system is forecast to reach $8tn while Australia’s is projected to swell to A$11tn by 2040.

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Over the past few weeks, several US banks have pulled off from lending to Oracle for expanding its AI data centres, as per a report.

It is the seventh day of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, and Israel is escalating attacks on Lebanon after ordering the entire population of southern Lebanon to flee. This comes as Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened to turn areas of Lebanon into another Gaza in a video shared on social media Thursday. “The word on everyone’s mouths here is ethnic cleansing,” says Lylla Younes, an investigative journalist speaking with Democracy Now! from Beirut. “People are basically fleeing north with nowhere to go. Shelters are filling up rapidly. People are sleeping on the pavement in the winter nights.”

Human rights lawyer Omar Shakir, the new executive director of DAWN, has urged Iran to give the International Criminal Court jurisdiction over apparent crimes committed by the U.S. and Israel in strikes on schools and hospitals. “There is more and more evidence emerging every single day of grave war crimes being carried out by the United States and Israel,” he says. “The Israeli government, because of impunity, is emboldened across the region. And unless we see a strong response from states that are willing to use the tools of accountability, … the risk to civilians across the region will continue to grow.”

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-Disarmament talks were paused on day war started, sources say

-Trump's Gaza plan viewed as major foreign policy goal

-Israel continues to strike Gaza, Hamas carries out ambushes

-US-led Gaza mission scales back operations

JERUSALEM/CAIRO, March 9 (Reuters) - Talks to advance President Donald Trump's plan to end the Gaza war have been on hold since last week when the U.S. and Israel jointly attacked Iran, sparking a broader Middle East war, three sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations said.

The pause threatens to stall implementation of ‌Trump's flagship Middle East peace initiative, which he has cast as a major foreign policy objective. It comes less than a month after he secured billions of dollars in pledges for Gaza from Gulf Arab states - countries that are now facing Iranian attacks as the conflict widens.

Trump's Gaza plan has hinged in part on whether Hamas militants would lay down their arms in exchange for amnesty, a step intended to pave the way for reconstruction and further Israeli military withdrawals. White House mediators have been backchanneling between Israel and Hamas on the disarmament question.

Negotiations on this and other issues were paused when the Iran war began on February 28, the three sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive talks. The pause in disarmament talks has not been previously reported.

Zaha Hassan, of the Washington-based Carnegie ⁠Endowment for International Peace, said countries including the United Arab Emirates and Qatar which pledged funds for Trump's Board of Peace mission may be questioning if this is "really money well spent now that they are dodging rocket fire."

As oil prices climbed past $100 a barrel for the first time in four years, OCBC analysts said China may be “less sensitive to a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz than many of its Asian peers.”

“China has accumulated one of the world’s largest strategic and commercial crude reserves,” the analysts said, adding that its “rapid transition toward electric vehicles and renewable energy provides an additional structural hedge.”

Carmen Espinosa - True to her name, she can be a bit “thorny”. She is a 17-year-old girl, later 18, in her senior year with an abrasive personality. She has a habit of calling people younger than her “kid”. Since she was born on May 2nd, she is one of the younger seniors in her year. While she is a genuinely kind person, she also has anger issues and deep-rooted self-hatred as well as an annoyance towards children due to having to babysit a bratty 8-year-old boy at the age of 15. Due to her annoyance and self-hatred, she takes her anger out on people under the age of 13 and has even been shown bullying them. Despite this, she genuinely does not want to see another kid injured or in danger and says she “hates” it. She is pretty affectionate with her fellow peers, such as jumping up and down and hugging people like Austin and Mika.

While she does seem to like Anya, she knows she can’t have her and her true interest is the Viewer (another senior), who she created the Highschool Harem Hell “saga” for to reach out to them.

(I don't care much that this may make her unlikable, she's supposed to be thorny and a child-hater. Also, this isn't sexual by any means, these characters are all minors [until the seniors turn 18 later], this is just a high school romance story.)

As a cracker, I then proceed to cook all the flavor out of them

In short:

Australia will send a military aircraft and 85 ADF personnel to the United Arab Emirates to assist in the defence of Gulf nations that have been attacked by Iran.

They will be operational by the end of the week for an initial four-week period for the "collective self-defence of Gulf nations".

What's next?

Foreign Minister Penny Wong says Iran's attacks on neighbouring countries escalated overnight.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Monday declared his support for his Lebanese counterpart Joseph Aoun in the latter’s effort to disarm Hezbollah.

The Middle East war expanded to Lebanon on March 2, after Tehran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of US-Israeli attacks on Iran

Since March 2, Israel has been conducting large-scale air raids on Lebanon and incursions with ground troops, killing at least 486 people according to the Lebanese health ministry.

President Trump on Sunday threatened to not sign any bills into law until the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act is approved by the Senate, doubling down on his push to change voting requirements ahead of the midterm elections.

“I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY…,” the president wrote in his Sunday morning Truth Social post.

If the president doesn't sign a bill, it becomes law in 10 days. Sundays don't count, and if congress adjourns during the period, it counts as a veto.

The article in full: https://bret.dk/every-single-board-computer-i-tested-in-2025/

Part of a larger $550 billion investment framework.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43965516

It is worth noting that both the hardware and software of Fairphone is heavily dependent on a Chinese company T2Mobile.

For those looking to avoid both US and Chinese companies, then the Jolla phone is the way to go.