Monday, October 28, 2024

China's Ghost Cities

Kaynat Kakar ✪ @kaynat_kakar

China's GHOST Cities

$170 BILLION worth of Empty Cities, Abandoned Skyscrapers, and Fake European Towns that nobody lives in:


Here are China's most Haunting Ghost Cities:

1. Ordos 
A $161 billion ghost city built for 1 million people.

• Currently 90% empty

• Built during the coal mining boom

• Looks like a sci-fi movie set

https://x.com/i/status/1850803667974111519• Most apartments are owned by investors who never lived there

2. Jun Ming's Ghost Districts

• Population size of Madrid

• 15 skyscrapers demolished in 2021

• Unfinished since 2013

• Empty kindergartens

• Abandoned hospitals

3. Tianducheng: "Paris of the East"

• Complete with Eiffel Tower, pairs streets and buildings replica

• Empty Champs-Élysées

• Planned for 10,000 residents

• Current population: 1,000

• Too expensive for locals

• Mostly tourist attractions

4. Yujiapu: "China's Manhattan"

• $50 billion investment

• Empty skyscrapers

• No rush hour traffic

• Promotional video mocked NYC

• Ironically, it became more deserted than NYC

5. Thames Town: "Little London"

The Replica of London City

• Red phone boxes ✓

• Fish & chip shops ✓

• English pubs ✓

• Victorian architecture ✓

• People? ×

• Another failed replica city 

6. Chenggong: The Student City

• Failed city turned university hub

• 7 colleges moved in

• Busy during term time

• Ghost town in winter

• Gradual transformation

7. Why Does China Keep Building?

• Property = safe investment

• Chinese can't invest abroad easily

• Real estate drives economic growth

• Middle-class parks money in empty homes

• Construction = GDP growth

8. Why This Matters:

• Shows risks of rapid development

• Property bubble warning

• Environmental impact

• Resource waste

• Economic sustainability questions

9. China's ghost cities represent human history's largest real estate bubble. 

Only time will tell whether they become thriving metropolises or remain empty monuments to excess.

That's a wrap

I hope you enjoyed it and found this thread helpful.  

- Share with your friend for support.

- Follow me @kaynat_kakarfor more useful content.

Sunday, October 20, 2024

IDF reports fatigue and morale loss

Tony Karon linked this thread in the wake of Israel's Iran initiative.

Sina Toossi is a senior research analyst at the National Iranian American Council, where he conducts research and writing on U.S.-Iran relations, Iranian politics, and Middle East policy issues. His writings have appeared on Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and Al Monitor, among other outlets. He holds an MA in international affairs from American University’s School of International Service, with a regional concentration in the Middle East. 
 
🧵A very important piece: an Israeli outlet reports severe morale loss and exhaustion among soldiers, with many now refusing to serve.
Based on interviews with soldiers and families across units, it's described as a "suppressed but growing phenomenon."
2/ The piece opens with a striking anecdote:
In September, the Nahal Brigade began its 11th round of combat in Gaza, but out of a platoon of 30 soldiers, only 6 showed up—the rest claimed medical exemptions.
"I call it refusal and rebellion," says the mother of one soldier.
3/ The mother describes the sense of futility the soldiers feel:
"They keep going back to the same buildings they’ve already cleared, only to find them booby-trapped again. In the Zaytoun neighborhood alone, they've been there three times. They understand it’s pointless."
4/ One IDF soldier explains that the growing shortage of manpower means missions are "done halfway."
He adds, "The platoons are empty; those who aren’t dead or physically wounded are mentally broken. Very few come back to fight, and even they aren’t fully okay."
5/ The soldier notes that all of this was happening before the escalation in Lebanon and the current ground incursion.
He says, "I don't know with what army they think they'll enter Lebanon, because there is no army. I'm not going back to the battalion."
6/ The article states that this a suppressed but growing phenomenon of soldiers refusing to fight. The unity and sense of mission that once drove them has faded. "They fought until their last ounce of strength, but reached a point where they just couldn’t continue."
7/ Many parents say the soldiers' morale began to break down in April, as the war dragged on, and their sense of purpose started to fade.
"When they had to return to places we’d already been, like Jabalia, Zeitoun, and Shuja'iyya, it broke them," one parent explained.
8/ "What’s killing them are the conditions and the prolonged fighting without any end in sight," says on parent. "Not to mention the loss and the horrific scenes they witness in Gaza."
9/ One soldier says, "We’re sitting ducks in a shooting range. We don’t understand what we’re doing here...The hostages aren’t coming back, and it just feels never-ending—soldiers are getting injured and dying along the way. It all seems pointless."
10/ The article states that most of these soldiers refusing to serve (under medical exemptions) aren’t being sent to jail, and the whole situation is being kept quiet.
11/ It adds that after 12 straight months of a war that feels directionless, soldiers describe themselves as “black”—military slang for feeling depressed, exhausted, and drained of motivation.
"Today the motivation is zero."
12/ The article describes the situation Israeli soldiers face in Gaza: the only "music" they hear is the sound of air force bombs, and the air reeks of death and decay. They feel abandoned by the army, treated like mere tools on the path to "absolute victory."
13/ One Israeli soldier says: At a certain point, we were all exhausted & couldn’t see the purpose in going back to places we’d already been...Eventually, I stopped feeling anything. I lost faith in the system & no longer believed in what we were doing.
14/ The Israeli soldier recalls, "I was mentally exhausted, having anxiety attacks so severe that when they told us we were done maneuvering, I thought I’d get a break. I broke down, crying on a lawn, saying I couldn’t take it anymore. I was completely finished mentally."
15/ The soldier says his commander accusing him of "abandoning the country" & reprimanding him before the platoon.
But "the day," another "soldier came up to me and asked how I did it. He wanted to, but didn’t have the courage."
The next day, he left too.
16/ The shortage of soldiers has forced those who need mental health treatment to fight.
"My son went to his company commander & said, 'I feel like my alertness has dropped so much that I’m not only putting myself at risk, but also those around me. I’m not as sharp as I was."
17/ One father says, "The only way to stop this downward spiral or get some rest is to say, 'I refuse,' and then you're instantly treated like the most humiliated person on earth...It doesn’t matter what you’ve sacrificed, what you’ve been through, or what you’ve done."
18/ On the other hand, those who do manage to get mental health leave face emotional blackmail.
One soldier’s brother explains that when his sibling returned home, he couldn’t sleep in his room, barely ate, & was in severe mental distress--but still was forced to go back.
19/ Cultural differences among Israeli soldiers from different nationalities also complicate addressing morale issues.
One commander told his subordinates, "I come from a Polish family, where we don’t talk about feelings—that’s how I was raised, and that’s my way."
20/ A similar situation is unfolding with soldiers entering Lebanon. Exhausted, hundreds of paratroopers recently united to fight for "their rights", expressing anger, frustration, and distress over the lack of understanding about their urgent need for rest at home.
21/ Stunningly, these paratroopers entering Lebanon are being threatened with fines for military equipment lost or destroyed on October 7 or during the fighting and are denied new equipment until they sign that they are responsible for the loss.
22/ The piece ends with a powerful statement from an Israeli soldier: "If the treatment doesn’t improve soon, the little wind left in our sails will also disappear."
23/23 This isn’t the only Israeli report highlighting faltering morale and manpower shortages in the country's military.
These reports raise serious questions about the feasibility of Netanyahu prolonging the Gaza war or escalating conflicts with Lebanon and Iran.
/end🧵
10:35 AM · Oct 20, 2024
3,101 Views

Thursday, October 17, 2024

Yahya Sinwar Killed

Yahya Sinwar, Leader of Hamas, Is Dead

Yahya Sinwar, the Palestinian militant leader who emerged from two decades of prison in Israel to rise to the helm of Hamas and help plot the deadliest assault on Israel in its history, died on Thursday. He was in his early 60s.

A longtime Hamas leader who assumed its top political office in August, Mr. Sinwar was known among supporters and enemies alike for combining cunning and brutality. He built Hamas’s ability to harm Israel in service of the group’s long-term goal of destroying the Jewish state and building an Islamist, Palestinian nation in its place.

He played a central role in planning the surprise assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 people, brought 250 others back to Gaza as hostages and put him at the top of Israel’s kill list. Israeli leaders vowed to hunt him down, and the military dropped fliers over Gaza offering a $400,000 reward for information on his whereabouts.

But for more than a year, he remained elusive, surviving in tunnels Hamas had dug beneath Gaza, even as Israel killed many of his fighters and associates.

Laura Rozen thread the first hour after the announcement.

Ghaith al-Omari on Wash. Institute zoom on suspected Sinwar death: It's a very significant strategic blow for Hamas. sinwar was a unique leader in the sense that he had very strong standing, both in the military ring of Hamas and in the political wing of Hamas.

He says Sinwar is likely to be replaced by one of the Hamas leaders who are in Qatar right now. Will be more susceptible to outside pressure

Dennis Ross: You can look at this two different ways. One would be, you could go back to trying to get a hostage deal, because Sinwar, in many ways, was the reason there was no hostage deal.

Ross: …But you can also look at this from the standpoint that, having achieved much of what it was seeking to achieve in Gaza, you could put the prime minister in a position where he could declare success and say, Okay, we're..now ready to end the war.

Ghaith al-Omari says while Hamas center of gravity will move to the diaspora, and they are more susceptable to inducements/pressure, their ability to produce change on the ground is more limited.

Ross and al-Omari see the US use of B-2s to target underground Houthi facilities last night as being intended as a message to Iran. Al-Omari: The bigger message was to Iran. They used the B2s and the munitions that were used is a message to Iran that their deep underground facilities are vulnerable

Vice President Harris speaks to reporter about the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinawar by Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5137239/user-clip-vp-harris-killing-sinwar


Laura Rosen thread later...

Jake Sullivan, asked, with Sinwar death, if thinks could reach ceasefire by end of year: “I’ve long since given up on making predictions or drawing timelines. All I can say is that we see an opportunity now that we want to seize to try to secure the release of the hostages, and we're going to work at that as rapidly” (as possible)

“His removal from the battlefield does present an opportunity to find a way forward that gets the hostages home,… brings us to a day after.

That's something we're going to have to talk about with our Israeli counterparts.”

Sullivan: “We've had very constructive communications with the Israelis about how they're thinking about responding to the attack on October 1. Those conversations will continue.”

Sullivan: “We've had very constructive communications with the Israelis about how they're thinking about responding to the attack on October 1. Those conversations will continue.”


This man's cruelty was legendary.

Arrested by Israel in the late 1980s, he admitted under interrogation to having killed 12 suspected collaborators. He was eventually sentenced to four life terms for offenses that included the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers.

Michael Koubi, a former director of the investigations department at Israel’s Shin Bet security agency who interrogated Sinwar personally, recalled the confession that stood out to him the most: Sinwar recounted forcing a man to bury his own brother alive because he was suspected of working for Israel.

“His eyes were full of happiness when he told us this story,” Koubi said.

He became the leader of the hundreds of imprisoned Hamas members. He organized strikes to improve conditions. He learned Hebrew and studied Israeli society.

Friday, October 11, 2024

Searching for Hope in the Wake of October 7

Searching for Hope in the Wake of October 7

The author traveled throughout Israel-Palestine and found a society still reeling with grief

Lisa Goldman  Lisa Goldman is Europe Editor at New Lines magazine    October 7, 2024

For weeks after Oct. 7, I was mute with horror. Quite a few people wanted me to offer a private explainer or do media interviews. I couldn't. But six months later I went to Israel-Palestine and talked to Palestinians and Israelis for this article.

I wasn't interested in talking to politicians or leaders. I wanted to hear from friends, acquaintances, ordinary people on the streets. Those deep personal conversations and chance encounters offer the most revealing insights.

The question of "why can't they feel compassion for the other" is not very interesting. There are no real answers and the few on offer don't bring any insight. What's much more interesting, in my opinion, is to see how people function under extreme stress.

How do people behave toward those closest to them and toward the world when they feel that the social contract they believed in has been shattered by their government's indifference?
How do people behave when they are surrounded by political violence in the only place they feel truly at home?

There are many answers to that question. Here are some that I found:
People become particularly tender and protective toward those closest to them, especially their children.

This was something I saw in Sawsan, the 39 year-old mother of 5 from Gaza, who was able to bring them to Israel because she had Israeli citizenship, though the authorities made her walk through fire. I wrote about her harrowing journey and the effect of the war on her children.

And I'll never forget listening to Shira Albag, mother of 19 year-old Liri, who was taken hostage on Oct. 7, emit that primal scream of heartbreak and loss while addressing a demonstration in Tel Aviv.

And yet, despite the widespread sense of fear and agony I encountered everywhere, the cliche about life going on was spectacularly proven. People went to concerts, the beach, cafes and restaurants. As one friend said, "The whole world is on fire, but the family is lovely."

These are some of the observations I collected while traveling from the north to the south, to the West Bank and Jerusalem, talking to people from as many backgrounds as possible and trying to tell the story of a place through human experience.



Friday, October 4, 2024

Hurricane Misinformation -- Jamie Dupree Twitter Thread



Jamie Dupree  @jamiedupree
Donald Trump and Republicans claim that FEMA doesn't have money for Hurricane Helene relief, because as much as $1 billion or more was transferred out of FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund to deal with illegal immigrant needs.

There is no evidence of that.  🧵 1/ with receipts

FEMA puts out a monthly report on how much is in the Disaster Relief Fund.

It lists all the transfers of money and what's been spent.

You can find them at this link: https://fema.gov/about/reports-and-data/disaster-relief-fund-monthly-reports  2/

The latest report lists several minor transfers in and out of FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund in 2024.  They don't come close to $1 billion, and don't involve aid for illegal immigrants.  

https://fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_ocfo-september2024disasterrelieffundreport.pdf#page=7
3/

FEMA has now set up a 'Rumor Response Page' to address this specific charge that money was moved out of the Disaster Relief Fund.  

https://fema.gov/disaster/current/hurricane-helene/rumor-response 
4/

Was FEMA money spent on housing for migrants?  Yes.  But it didn't come from the Disaster Relief Fund.  Congress approved a transfer of $650 million from Customs and Border Protection into a special shelter program run by FEMA. 

https://congress.gov/118/bills/hr2882/BILLS-118hr2882enr.pdf#page=139 
5/

Has FEMA ever transferred money from the Disaster Relief Fund to illegal immigration efforts?  YES.  

Donald Trump did that in 2019.  $38 million was transferred from the Disaster Relief Fund to ICE.

 https://fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/disaster-relief-fund-report_9-2019.pdf#page=7  
6/

FEMA will issue another monthly report on the Disaster Relief Fund later this month.  We'll be able to check the details again soon.

At this time, Trump's claims are FALSE.   
/fin

One more tweet.  Does the Disaster Relief Fund need money?  Yes.  The White House asked for $20 billion.  House Republicans did not include any money in the CR.

FEMA has regular resources for disaster work.  But the Disaster Relief Fund needs more to deal with Helene. /fin