Image is of Brazilian chuds storming the National Congress building in opposition to Lula winning the election, on January 8th, 2023, in their remarkably even shittier version of the January 6th events in America.
Bolsonaro, who is in the tragic category of pro-US South American leaders who are so awful and uncharismatic that even they can't get the US to help them overthrow a democratically elected left-ish government, has recently been facing that most elusive of things in this current world order: consequences for his actions. Bolsonaro and his friends have been under investigation by the police, and his passport has now been seized, meaning he is unable to leave the country. Alongside the man himself, the leader of the Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, has been caught up in searches and investigations. Brazilian Army Colonel Bernardo Correa Neto, a former aide to Bolsonaro, was very recently arrested upon his return to Brazil from the US, as well as another colonel.
From the Hexbear South American correspondent (a position I just made up), @[email protected]:
Lol, they are really fucked. Iirc, this is a municipal election year in Brazil, Bolsonaro can't campaign publicly, he can't promote his candidates. The leader of his party is currently in prison. And even if he is released from prison, they are forbidden to communicate with each other. The high-ranking members of the Liberal Party are pretty much fucked because they can't communicate with each other and getting support from Bolsonaro could be very bad, as left-wing candidates will exploit the fact that Bolsonaro will probably be imprisoned for planning a coup.
The FBI seems to have concluded its investigation into Bolsonaro's money laundering scheme in the US and handed over its findings to the Brazilian Federal Police, I don't think Bolsonaro can even go to the US anymore, or any other country. And it could get even funnier, there is a very small chance of the Liberal Party being banned and all its seats in congress and the senate being transferred to other politicians, many of whom, even if they are conservative, will be much more favorable to Lula's social and economic reforms, as it has been proven that Bolsonaro used the party to finance the coup.
The Country of the Week is Brazil! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
The Battle of avdeevka is ending. This is happening too fast to follow in detail at work but holy shit UAF are getting routed
CW: No visible gore but extremely sad video https://streamable.com/pmpm0i
Hopefully the wounded left behind get adequate medical care after they get captured. Easy propaganda win seeing as they got left behind by their own.
No reason they wouldn’t. They are worth more alive than dead for prisoner exchanges and negotiations
I meant more that there is always the chance a shell falls on their shelter or something before the Russian forces realize it’s abandoned.
I have no doubt they’ll be treated well if they survive to be captured.
I mean dude in the video and his fellow wounded probably have a better chance at surviving by surrendering than they do trying to drive out of there under Russian artillery. They'll get better healthcare from Russia than they could hope for from Ukraine. Heck he may even just be faking the video so his wife keeps getting paid because he is a POW instead of them cutting him off because he surrendered.
Big Arrow make the news mega go bbbbrrrrrr
If you felt like this was happening, I'd hope you'd retreat the majority of your forces while a skeleton force maintains a delaying action (and then gets captured, in all likelihood). Depending on the... Fashiness of the command structure though, holding at all costs can be very important (the soil part of blood and soil, especially if you don't think you can do an offensive to take things back). Which if you're advancing, that's what you want (bitey chunks of enemy formations). This also changes over the course of the war as people die, get captured, or fired. Also, that retreat corridor looks pretty grim. That only looks like a few km if that.
Organized retreats also require organization. By all accounts, officers in the AFU have been decimated over the last year or so. Running the gauntlet would be hard at full capacity - less so when the left hand can't coordinate with the right.
I was going to make a joke here about organisation and morale in hoi but I'm too sad for unrelated reasons
I measured it it's like 3.5 km.
Oh boy this could possibly end the stalemate
There was a stalemate? The lines were kinda static for a while but war isn't measured by who controls what territory.
I'm making a joke that no one got :pensive
Sorry. You were too good. If you had said. "end in stalemate" I would have know you were taking the piss
I’ve been saying a stalemate is not very likely. If you were in a Ukrainians shoes would you stay where you were? Just getting pounded by artillery until some Ahkmat guy assaults your trench? I think I speak for everyone when I say fuck no.
Western aid is being used to ensure that all Ukrainians have two phones.