Bro Dad posted:

for just $1200 a night you too can soberly talk about blockchain with a south african in the middle of nowhere with no escape

i say swears online posted:

wow it's just like tulum fifteen years ago!!

Toplowtech posted:

Enough with bad news!!!!

UPDATE AGAIN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak4on5uTaTg

14 days ago:
Saudis Scale Back Ambition for $1.5 Trillion Desert Project Neom

This week:
Saudi Arabia's $500 billion Neom megacity is reportedly seeking new sources of cash

MONEY PLEASE!!!

Weka posted:

Neom is being scaled back and you think that's good news?!

Toplowtech posted:

Pretty sure a shitton of non-muslim tourists would visit Mecca like non-Catholics visit the Vatican but LOL, no, never going to happen. Also they loving destroyed a shitton of historic building linked to Mohamed in both Meca and Medina so i doubt they care about anything but the pilgrims.

Bro Dad posted:

Hey I wonder how their first attempts at tourism are going

Saudi Arabia’s Tourism Potential—and Roadblocks—Revealed in a Posh Desert Hotel

VoicesCanBe posted:

https://twitter.com/EricSchmittNYT/status/1781455128509194562

nordicmonitor.com - Tue, 12 Mar 2024 posted:

The second largest army in the NATO military alliance in terms of manpower was slated for transformation into a caliphate army under the command of Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to a long-time confidant of the president who was involved in influence operations both within Turkey and abroad.

“A true Anatolian, caliphate army will be established, and the disgrace of taking orders from the United States will come to an end for the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK],” Erol Olçok, a close advisor who had been closely working with Erdogan since the 1990s, wrote on social media platform X, previously Twitter.

He further added that the army would receive orders directly from the Reis (Chief Erdogan), who would soon be directing military operations as head of the army. Olçok described these changes as a dream that would soon become a reality.

“An army befitting the leader of the Islamic world and this land will be established. Let all the rats within the TSK tremble; a major [crackdown] operation is on the horizon. Very soon, we will see chiefs of general staff leading prayers for their army. … This summer, during the Feast of the Sacrifice, all infiltrators within the TSK will be purged, and this land will be cleansed. Let it be known that the commander-in-chief, the leader, will ensure this,” Olçok wrote.

Olçok’s tweet came five days before a failed coup on July 15, 2016, which, as he predicted, resulted in a significant purge within the military. Two-thirds of all generals and admirals as well as nearly all staff officers were abruptly dismissed. A total of 23,971 personnel, primarily in the officer ranks, were purged from the Turkish army without any military, administrative, or criminal investigations.

The purge primarily targeted pro-NATO officers or individuals who had served in NATO assignments, at NATO headquarters in Brussels or NATO-affiliated bases in the US, Norway, Germany, Italy and Spain. Evidence presented in coup trials revealed that the profiling of those to be purged was quietly carried out between 2014 and 2016 by Turkish intelligence agency MIT and its extensive network of informants.
…
Tanrıverdi, who regards Erdogan as the long-awaited Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of Islam for whom the entire Muslim world is waiting, assumed the role of chief military advisor to Erdogan following the failed coup in 2016. While he officially left his position in January 2020, he continues to wield significant influence over the government’s defense and military strategy.

As predicted by Olçok, Erdogan began appearing in military fatigues for the first time since 2016, and he was seen at military operation headquarters, accompanied by high-ranking generals and the chief of general staff, directing Turkish army operations in Syria. These operations involved support from opposition rebel Islamist groups aiding the Turkish military.

Once again, as predicted by Olçok, the disengagement from the US was underway in 2016. Public prosecutors, acting on orders from the government, initiated investigations into US military officers deployed at Turkey’s Incirlik Airbase, home to the US Air Force’s 39th Air Base Wing. Senior US Defense officials and commanders who visited the base were the subjects of sham criminal investigations.

A year after the core of the army’s officer corps was hollowed out, Turkey and Russia signed a contract on April 11, 2017 for two S-400 systems valued at around $2.5 billion. The initial delivery of S-400 missile batteries, which commenced on July 12, 2019 and concluded in September 2019, comprised two S-400 batteries and over 120 long-range missiles, along with experts tasked with training Turkish soldiers on their operation as part of the agreement.

Despite warnings from the US, President Erdogan proceeded with the purchase at a significant cost. Ankara not only faced expulsion from the global F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program but also incurred a series of sanctions, embargoes and restrictions on the procurement of defense items from the US and other NATO allies.
…
Some have drawn comparisons between Olçok and Paul Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist for Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party in Germany during the 1930s and ’40s. Ethnically a Circassian, Olçok had also worked closely with the Circassian diaspora in Turkey.

mawarannahr posted:

I wouldn't say it's their first attempt at tourism. more than 2 million go to hajj every year.

mawarannahr posted:

I wouldn't say it's their first attempt at tourism. more than 2 million go to hajj every year.

Mandel Brotset posted:

mawarannahr posted:

this bad boy is 7 times bigger than Big Ben and it's also a hotel

VoicesCanBe posted:

https://twitter.com/EricSchmittNYT/status/1781455128509194562

MinutePirateBug posted:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/20/chinese-students-in-us-tell-of-chilling-interrogations-and-deportations

I'm glad the US starting to clamp down on its Chinese population in weird authoritarian ways. The residual war on terror stuff was way too stale.

quote:

Since yesterday, terrible battles have been taking place between the Somali police of the occupied Ogaden region and the Afar nationality forces supported by the Ethiopian government in the Setti region. The Somali police and Somali volunteer herdsmen crushed the Afar forces and regained much of the territory they had lost during previous wars with the Afar nationality. The Ethiopian Afar nationalists are crying on all social networking sites. As for Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, he used the card of Islam to stop the progress of the Somalis by declaring that it is not permissible to fight between Muslims, while he remained silent and ignored the Afar aggression against the Somalis.

In any case, Ogaden Governor Mustafa Muhammad refused to respond to Abiy Ahmed’s calls to stop the fighting. The reasons for the fighting are that the Ethiopian government wants to expel the Somalis from the Seti region and isolate the Ogaden regions near Djibouti and populate the Afar nationality in order to cut off and isolate Djibouti from its Somali surroundings and facilitate its swallowing by Ethiopia. Djibouti depends on the state of Somalia and the occupied Ogaden region for drinking water, vegetables and fruits. The state of Djibouti was formed on very hot volcanic lands. Therefore, isolating Djibouti from its Somali extension in Ogaden and northern Somalia (by building the Ethiopian naval base in Zeila) will place it at the mercy of Ethiopia.

Djiboutian President Ismail Amr Guelleh is not interested in securing Djibouti's water and agricultural future, but all his conspiracies are directed against Somalia. Ismail Amr Gileh also dreams of appointing his daughter’s husband, Sadiq John, to the position of President of Somalia. Thus, Ismail Amr Gileh will rule Somalia behind the scenes through the puppet, Sadiq John, his daughter’s wife, who is currently the Somali ambassador to Djibouti.

wikipedia posted:

Mustafa Muhumed Omar (Somali: Mustafe Muxumed Cumar; born 1972), also called Cagjar, is an Ethiopian politician who is the current president of the Somali Region and also the Deputy Chairman of the Somali Democratic Party, a member of Ethiopia’s newly formed Prosperity Party led by Abiy Ahmed, the sitting Prime Minister of Ethiopia

quote:

#HappeningNow: Somali forces in the Ethiopian-occupied Somali region are combating Anfar militias, who have been attempting to expand into Somali territories for nearly a decade.

Worth noting that Anfar militias are involved in ethnic cleansing and mass displacement of Somalis in the Sitti region—a project backed by the Ethiopian government, aiming to secure access to the sea and assert dominance over the Sitti region, bordering Djibouti.

crepeface posted:

chad just asked for the same thing

https://x.com/RT_com/status/1781774845065228635

Weka posted:

Disclaimer: I have no idea if any of this is true so would appreciate any input. I can't find anything

https://twitter.com/dervishconan/status/1781913395119247748



A month ago this fellow was posting on facebook about peace dividends.

The original tweeter quoted another in the thread but it has a video of a fellow firing a machine gun, possibly in combat so I'll just quote it here, mostly for the map.