Depends what you mean I guess. They have thousands of years of history as bordering nations so I imagine there's been tense times here and there but as far as I'm aware, things have been mostly chill up until China became an economic powerhouse and gave India big trade deficits, which is a fairly understandable thing to get antsy about. So it doesn't seem the case to me that like, the West poisoned their relationship, but more that there were already increasing tensions with the economy and Tibet and the West is just taking advantage of it. Personally I'd be very surprised if it ever turned into a real warzone - for one thing, the terrain fucking sucks - but I can totally imagine India giving the US some significant if perhaps covert help if Taiwan ever pops off
personally if I was Iran and I wanted to develop nukes, I wouldn't tell anybody I was doing it and only when I was pretty sure I had them, or was at the point where I had to do a nuclear test (which will virtually certainly be detected regardless of how it's done), would I say that I had nukes. so it's possible that Iran is actually constructing nukes right now and will only reveal them if the conflict reaches a critical point, of which the recent Israeli strike was a bold/idiotic step towards. but the constant boy-who-cried-wolf effect of "IRAN IS 0.45 NANOSECONDS FROM NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND WE MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!" will mean that we can't really trust rumors in the same way that we could (even if many of us on Hexbear didn't) when US intelligence agencies were correctly predicting a Russian invasion of Ukraine
This development occurred after the Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) suffered a defeat in the 31 March local elections, losing votes to the Turkish Islamist New Welfare Party (YRP), which managed to secure victories over the AKP in several cities. There is a consensus that the country’s economic problems, including declining real pensions and salaries amid runaway inflation, played a primary role in the AKP’s electoral defeat.
While Turkey’s continuing trade with Israel was not the biggest issue prompting conservative voters to stay home or switch parties, it was a factor among others, which even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged during a party meeting earlier this week on the election results, according to party sources. Speaking about the AKP’s worst election defeat since 2002, Erdogan said on last week: “Unfortunately, even on an issue like the Gaza crisis, for which we did everything we could and paid the price, we failed to fend off political attacks and convince some people.”
an ominous omen for various western democracies who are entering elections this year
it's worth it for the techniques they bring to the battlefield. for example, they excel in hand-to-hand combat with both their tactical water-pulse flowers that blind attackers, and they can tie up Russian soldiers into various animal shapes, like they do with balloons
not only that, but the abilities of a clown car to transport many dozens of troops in a single civilian car should be utilized to get troops around Ukraine efficiently if NATO wants to win this war
There's definitely something there. I think there's essentially two moments for an idea or new ideological movement or way of organizing society - the first point is where the new idea first becomes feasible, and the second point is where the old idea cannot be kept afloat any longer and necessarily collapses. And there can be a gap - sometimes a very big gap - between those two moments. For example, Napoleon might have represented the point at which his set of ideas which replaced the old aristocracy first became feasible (somebody more historically literate than me can inform me whether there was another major predecessor that I'm unaware of), but European monarchies having real power continued to be a phenomenon for decades afterwards until the concept could not continue existing and collapsed. Similarly, the Russian Revolution and the USSR might well be viewed as the moment where socialism first became feasible, but the old order fought back as it wasn't quite ready to collapse, and that second, true collapse moment is in the years, probably decades ahead.
As such, a person calling the concept of socialist organization a failure merely because the USSR fell and thus socialism cannot exist because of capitalist realism will be viewed as similarly ridiculous as somebody saying that it's simply not feasible for liberal democracies to exist because of, idk, divine-right-of-kings realism.
And it'll probably be the case in the future that the transition from socialism to communism will experience something similar - a "socialist realism" which posits that a truly stateless, moneyless, classless society simply cannot work; a failed truly communist experiment in a world of generally socialist nations which is regarded as proof that communism doesn't work and socialism is the only possible current reality, before socialism then cannot keep existing due to the contradictions and global communism arrives. And perhaps future conditions will introduce further contradictions, maybe aliens come along and that introduces a new stage to progress through, and so on for all of future human existence.
From Desai's Geopolitical Economy, in 2013:
Crises teasingly hold out the possibility of dramatic reversals only to be followed by surreal continuity as the old order cadaverously fights back. So far in the current crisis military fight-back appears to be failing. Multipolarity and the shift in the world’s centre of gravity to the emerging economies opened the way for the toppling of US-supported dictators in Egypt and Tunisia. Though Western intervention in Libya could not be prevented, it was stalled in Syria. However, there were more worrying signs of continuity in political economy and geopolitical economy. Announcements of the return of the state and of the ‘Master’, Keynes, which came with initial flurry of bailouts and stimuli were followed by austerity, signalling ‘the strange non-death of neoliberalism’.
We really shouldn't have put all our solar panels in an area precisely matching the trajectory of a solar eclipse seemingly moving across the Earth's surface. was bound to catch up to us eventually
To quote @[email protected]:
Fast food chains are using algorithms to cooperatively fix prices
Hotel chains are using algorithms to cooperatively fix prices
Meat processors are using algorithms to cooperatively fix prices
Landlords are using algorithms to cooperatively coordinate rent increases
Amazon is using an algorithm to specifically coordinate cooperative price rises with Target
The current era of inflation is due to capitalist GOSPLANning.
If there was ever a time when we could hypothetically pretend that we were living in a free market (and any serious economist knows that we never did), that time is now unequivocally over. The benefits of economic planning are too juicy and efficient, and, ironically enough, the free hand of the market cannot resist planning. Both the US and China are "non-market systems," the US is just bitter that China is using planning to actually benefit the population and society at large, rather than make the easiest profit for the worst parasites in society.
this is the lore for Miyazaki's next hit game, Biden Ring
- How socially progressive or conservative is the country generally? To what degree is there equality between men and women, as well as different races and ethnic groups? Are LGBTQIA+ rights protected?
The UK is about as equal as most Western democracies are, in both the better and worse ways. Racism and sexism very obviously still exist, there are areas in various cities where poverty is rampant and structural racism places people in colour in those environments, and so on, but pride marches are a thing and few politicians are outwardly saying that women deserve less rights or anything, just in the more covert ways. An overwhelming majority of people support the right to an abortion. The main issue that dominates recent discussion is about trans rights; most here will be familiar with the designation of the UK as "TERF Island", which is about right. The right for trans people to exist is hotly debated, as if this isn't an inherently dehumanizing discussion. The other major social issue that conservatives love to discuss is immigration, with the mere existence of a lifeboat containing a dozen or two brown-skinned people arriving on the shores of a country containing nearly 70 million treated as a DEFCON 1 event signalling the end of British civilization as we know it. Despite immigration numbers being pretty low compared to the current population; despite the UK's long history of taking over foreign nations and thus prompting migrating between those places; and despite the UK playing a proud role in destabilizing and bombing their way through countries whose citizens flee and try and find refuge in the UK; the discussion about immigration is only limited to the typical rhetoric about how every person of color is a benefits-hoarding dragon keeping 36 jobs in their attic and keeping them from "real" (read: white) British citizens, and how they're not allowed to oppress our gays - only WE'RE allowed to do that!
Going to reverse the last two bulletpoints:
- If you want, go even further back in history. Were there any kingdoms or empires that once governed the area?
Britain once had indigneous people who inhabited the island, though I'm very unfamiliar with the pre-Roman history; needless to say that the Romans came along in AD 43 and had taken the place over in about a generation. Like in most places the Romans went, much of their institutions and even structures had a large impact of our history - so large that it's often difficult to determine what doesn't somehow originate from the Roman Empire. Once Rome collapsed, as far as I'm aware, the UK had a similar history as the rest of the continent - keeping some of the Roman institutions, watching them decay, repairing what could be repaired and otherwise surviving, with the cultural group which existed during this time being called the Anglo Saxons. The UK became an arena in 1066 in the Norman Conquest, resulting in the Viking force being defeated and the Normans taking control. These were then replaced by the Plantagenets, to whom Richard the Lionheart of Crusades fame belonged. Then came the Tudors, the Stuarts, and finally Oliver Cromwell in the mid 17th century, who started a civil war and won, creating the Commonwealth, but his failson fucked up and the royalty came back de jure (really it still existed de facto). Then came the monarchs that people, including myself, actually give a modicum of a shit about, including George III who presided over the defeat to America and Victoria I, who had a whole period named after her.
During this period, the British Empire rose, presiding in four main arenas: North America, Africa, India and surrounding areas, and the Pacific - though not necessarily concurrently. Britain and other European nations had a lot of interest in the Caribbean due to the potential profit of cash crops, transporting and enslaving tens of millions of African and Caribbean-indigneous slaves in the worst atrocities on the planet up to that point in history. Britain and France also bickered over America and Canada, while Britain and the Netherlands bickered over India, creating their respective East India Companies. Eventually, a British focus on naval prowess and a relatively more modern economy, as well as the advantages of industrialization and early capitalism, led to them taking a commanding lead over their European counterparts overseas, with Britain generally coming out on top in wars. There was never a substantial period of consistent supremacy - Britain was deeply afraid of a European invasion and thus made even more ships than necessary in order to handle both a sprawling foreign empire and their foes right next to them. India became their economic "jewel" in the 19th century as America achieved and maintained independence and slavery was abolished, while directly causing mass famines both in India and around the world which killed tens of millions more people, and then they ventured further into Africa and killed yet more fucking people. This obviously culminated in World War 1 as European nations had less territory to exploit and had to fight each other more directly than ever before for supremacy, and again in World War 2.
By this time, the British Empire was very clearly declining as America's neoimperialist star rose. In the decades that followed, nations declared independence and despite some very brutal fights in some cases, the trend was generally that Britain would, as it imagined, very magnanimously let these new infant nations which they had "raised" or "uplifted" have independence; things would go well for a short period of time; and then inevitably collapse into infighting as the legacies of colonialism and the still very much still existing neocolonialism and capitalist exploitation kept them in poverty and subservience to Britain and the United States, thus fueling narratives that Britain was "the only empire that fell without very much bloodshed," and also racist ideas, upon watching these nations fall into infighting, that this was somehow their true nature coming out as soon as the paternalistic figure stepped away.
- Give a basic overview of the last 50 or 100 years. What's the historical trend of politics, the economy, social issues, etc - rise or decline? Were they always independent or were they once occupied, and how have things been since independence if applicable?
As stated, nations withdrew from the British Empire, with Britain left with the spoils of centuries of obscene quantities of exploitation, leaving them in a good position. These riches were never remotely evenly distributed, but the complex web of social and economic factors from the empire, as well as propaganda, created a country which was considerably less radical than various other nations at the time of WW1. This is not to say that socialist and even communist groups did not gain prominence in the inter-war period, because some did. However, for a variety of reasons (such as the goddamn Sankey Committee and the missed opportunities there) the environment never turned as revolutionary as it did in Russia or Italy, and the optimistic post-war period crashed into an purposefully-caused economic recession due to the fucking neoclassical economists which then curtailed hope of creating a better country until World War 2, more or less. After this, the contradictions were difficult to contain much longer and institutions like the National Health Service were created to reform the country rather than risk revolution as the Soviets pressured Europe into improving worker conditions or tempt revolution. Thatcher came along and dramatically reformed the country in the other direction, crushing the miners' strikes and truly inaugurating the period of exporting everything that isn't nailed down to places with less labour rights, which is the same period we are in a good 50 years on.
Given that this is my home country, I figure I'll give an answer to the questions that I posit to others.
- What is the general ideology of the political elite? Do they tend to be protectionist nationalists, or are they more free trade globalists? Are they compradors put there by foreign powers? Are they socialists with wide support by the population?
The UK political elite range from protectionists to globalists. The Brexit vote was at least partially founded on the idea of turning inwards, bringing power to domestic industries and not allowing as much European influence. It's obviously more complicated than that, because the UK was not about to become autarkic - instead, the proposed plan was to abandon EU deals that were perceived as limiting and engage more with the rest of the world, so in reality, it was almost contradictorily protectionist and globalist. It goes without saying that this "plan" was more-or-less smoke and mirrors for all but a few true believers, merely intended for profit and, of course, to ride on racist sentiments. In practice, at the end of the day, the UK elite are pretty firmly globalists. They were among the original practitioners of neoliberalism and have similarly exported industries abroad, with Thatcher's reign being especially intense in terms of deindustrialization but the trend has not been appreciably slowed except when there was not much else to export. Nowadays, the UK economy is based generally on high-end industrial products and finance capital, insurance, etc etc. Socialists do exist and actually have made more grounds than in America, a country which the UK is very reasonably compared to, with Corbyn's control of the Labour party in the late 2010s being the best recent example, but socialism here tends to be tainted with social conservatism, as Galloway is a good example of.
- What are the most important domestic political issues that make the country different from other places in the region or world? Are there any peculiar problems that have continued existing despite years or decades with different parties?
Britain deals with several legacies. The most unique of which is that they were once the center of the world's largest empire before the United States. When things fell apart in the 20th century, their power waned, but the artifacts and memory of this legacy still remain in the population, especially in older people who were educated about the UK as a world-bestriding colossus, or were taught by people who grew up in that era and with that propaganda. There is a general feeling in the political sphere - often unarticulated but detectable with the right lens - that the UK, or even the world, is a worse place now that their very visible and formal imperialism has collapsed, and people pine for the "good old days" even if they don't explicitly state it; this is comparable to older people in the US who are nostalgic for a simpler and more united time such as the, uh, 1950s and 1960s before black people obtained de jure rights.
Another legacy is that of their conflict with Ireland over the centuries, and particularly the most recent conflict called The Troubles, which Thatcher tragically survived. However, I personally haven't seen anybody think that trying to reclaim or fight Ireland is a good idea right now and seem pretty content to just let things be. Things are a little more complicated when talking about Northern Ireland, and people probably don't want to hand that over to Ireland, but that's outside of my current knowledge so I'm not gonna talk much further on it. Scottish independence is another domestic political issue which has been much less violent, though there are many in Scotland who are passionate about it. Scotland has its own party called the SNP which usually achieves large numbers of votes, but there's also always been support for Labour and the Conservatives too.
There is, finally, the Brexit vote, which I've already pointed out, where the UK sought to leave the EU due to a perceived sense of getting a bad deal (for what it's worth, the UK has always had benefits from the EU not afforded to other nations inside it; it's been allowed to keep its currency and not adopt the euro, for example, which Greece would be jealous of). It's been an issue that dominated British political discourse since at least 2016 after the vote for it narrowly succeeded, and doesn't neatly fall upon the Conservative-Labour divide. In fact, it seems almost perpendicular to it, with pro and anti-Brexit Labour and Conservative voters, with everybody each having their own collection of reasons why they think it's a good or bad idea. Nowadays, with the UK outside of the EU, the issue has predictably died down, with plenty of people supporting either side still but with a general sense of being disappointed by the results ("They went too hard!" or "They didn't go hard enough!" etc).
- Is the country generally stable? Are there large daily protests or are things calm on average? Is the ruling party/coalition generally harmonious or are there frequent arguments or even threats?
The UK is relatively stable. There are large protests especially recently due to Israel's genocide in Gaza, but there is no sense of a fracturing political scene in the sense of "Oh shit, the government might possibly collapse!" There have been a couple points where the government has seemed a little shakier than usual - the first being in 2019 when there were rumblings that if Corbyn were to win, that the military (and probably the Central Bank and other such institutions) would rebel against his rule, but he failed to win for other reasons. The second was when Liz Truss was briefly made Prime Minister in late 2022, before resigning very shortly after and being replaced by her unelected main rival Rishi Sunak. With Keir Starmer taking control of the Labour Party, the two main parties have maintained the Western democracy pantomime of pretending to have big disagreements while actually agreeing on most things and being a one-party state. There are, of course, lots of arguments between politicians - neither party is a monolith - but nothing that threatens stability meaningfully.
- Is there a particular country to which this country has a very impactful relationship over the years, for good or bad reasons? Which one, and why?
The UK has had a LOT of relationships due to the nature of being an empire, although the UK probably cares much less about them than they care about the UK. All of the independence days around the world celebrating them breaking off from the UK are proof of that. That all being said, to keep things brief, I would say that the UK has had a strong relationship with the USA (first adversarial due to the colonial relationship, and then gradually becoming allied in the 19th and 20th centuries); Argentina (the Falklands War); France (centuries-long history of alliances and wars); Israel (selling the territory that would become the occupied state of Palestine to Zionists); China (the Opium Wars); and Australia (similar to the USA, except without a war to separate the two countries; Australia was once a penal colony for the UK).
- What are the political factions in the country? What are the major parties, and what segments of the country do they attract?
The UK's political factions are composed of the Conservatives, the Labour Party, and the Liberal Democrats. Regional parties in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland also exist, and there are plenty of tiny parties that gain little support. I'm not very familiar with the history of the Conservatives, but the analogy sometimes made that they're approximately the same as the Democrats are in America isn't too far from the truth. Labour has shifted over time from a more genuinely socialist-oriented party albeit more reformist than revolutionary in the first half of the 20th century, to the "New Left" Labour which took power at the turn of the millennium under Tony Blair which essentially surrendered to the Conservative ideology and merely argued that they could steer the ship more competently. As stated before, there was a brief socialist resurgence under Corbyn, but for a variety of reasons (which are still debated to this day), he failed to create a party that could defeat the Conservatives, and since 2020, the Labour Party has once again fallen into the "New Left", or perhaps now the New New New Left.
The Liberal Democrats are the party that I'm the least familiar with but are really the third party in England, forming coalitions to allow one party or another to gain a majority. I'm not precisely sure what they claim to believe in, but in practice they seem to float around; sometimes being in the center, sometimes being on the center-left, and sometimes being on the center-right. The only "event" that I'm strongly aware of in recent history is when Nick Clegg, who led the party from 2007 to 2015, basically let everybody after forming a coalition with the Conservatives and not getting some big promises out of them. I can't say I've particularly cared about them since then.
- Are there any smaller parties that nonetheless have had significant influence? Are there notable separatist movements?
I've already mentioned the Northern Ireland parties that have sought independence and also the Scottish National Party, but for the latter, their independence referendum was voted down 45-55 in 2014, which has dampened enthusiasm for the project. There was rumblings during the Brexit days that Scotland might try and declare independence to re-join the EU but those only remained rumblings. The SNP experienced a fall from grace due to a controversary that I only half-remember which prompted the leader, Nicola Sturgeon, to resign in 2023, then being replaced by Humza Yousaf. Once again, they're the majority party but not the only party in Scotland; certainly not in the Scottish Parliament.
The Country of the Week is the United Kingdom!
Feel free to post or recommend any books, essays, studies, articles, and even stories related to the UK.
If you know a lot about the country and want to share your knowledge and opinions, here are some questions to get you started if you wish:
- What is the general ideology of the political elite? Do they tend to be protectionist nationalists, or are they more free trade globalists? Are they compradors put there by foreign powers? Are they socialists with wide support by the population?
- What are the most important domestic political issues that make the country different from other places in the region or world? Are there any peculiar problems that have continued existing despite years or decades with different parties?
- Is the country generally stable? Are there large daily protests or are things calm on average? Is the ruling party/coalition generally harmonious or are there frequent arguments or even threats?
- Is there a particular country to which this country has a very impactful relationship over the years, for good or bad reasons? Which one, and why?
- What are the political factions in the country? What are the major parties, and what segments of the country do they attract?
- Are there any smaller parties that nonetheless have had significant influence? Are there notable separatist movements?
- How socially progressive or conservative is the country generally? To what degree is there equality between men and women, as well as different races and ethnic groups? Are LGBTQIA+ rights protected?
- Give a basic overview of the last 50 or 100 years. What's the historical trend of politics, the economy, social issues, etc - rise or decline? Were they always independent or were they once occupied, and how have things been since independence if applicable?
- If you want, go even further back in history. Were there any kingdoms or empires that once governed the area?
These books focus on Britain before the British Empire:
- From Chiefs to Landlords: Social and Economic Change in the Western Isles and Highlands by Robert Dodgshon (1998).
- Pagan Britain by Ronald Hutton (2013).
- The Making of Oliver Cromwell by Ronald Hutton (2021).
These books focus on the British Empire domestically:
- The Century of Revolution, 1603-1714, by Christopher Hill (1961).
- The Making of the English Working Class by E. P. Thomson (1963).
- The Origins of English Individualism: The Family, Property and Social Transition by Alan Macfarlane (1978).
- The Capital Order by Clara E. Mattei (2022).
These books focus on the British Empire outside of Britain itself:
- Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915 by Antoinette Burton (1994).
- Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins (2005).
- Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire by David Anderson (2005).
- The Blood Never Dried: A People's History of the British Empire by John Newsinger (2006).
- Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918: Sexuality, Religion and Work by Billie Melman (2016).
- Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes by Tariq Ali (2022).
- Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism by Philip J. Stern (2023).
These books focus on post-Empire Britain:
- The Enemy Within: The Secret War Against the Miners by Seumas Milne (1994).
- Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain by George Monbiot (2000).
- We're Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire by Ian Patel (2021).
These books focus on left-wing movements:
- Futures of Socialism: ‘Modernisation’, the Labour Party, and the British Left by Colm Murphy (2023).
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Bulletins and News Discussion from April 8th to April 14th, 2024 - Ghoul Britannia - COTW: United Kingdom
(hexbear.net)
Image is of the Rubymar, a UK-registed ship sunk by Ansarallah off the coast of Yemen, after trying to illegally avoid sanctions.
The continuing fall of the remains of the British Empire is pretty entertaining from the outside: an archaic royal family that is seemingly being smote with disease by God itself for their past crimes; a navy that virtually no longer functions, ramming into foreign ports and under constant repair; and an economy that cannot seem to stop sputtering, fucked whether they're in the EU or outside it. Watching the impacts on people from the inside is a little more worrying, though.
A fifth of the population is in poverty, including nearly a third of all children. These figures have barely shifted since the Labour government in the early 2000s, aside from a decreasing poverty rate for pensioners. Actually, poverty hasn't substantially shifted since Margaret Thatcher. Before her, the poverty rate was around 14%, but her catastrophic policies caused a major increase, and poverty levels since then are still 50% higher than over 50 years ago, because neoliberal economic policy since then has not fundamentally changed. Parties and corporations have impoverished the usual vulnerable groups, such as large families, minority ethnic groups (including half of Pakistani and Bangladeshi households!) and disabled people. These differences are also regional, with the North more impoverished than the richer Southeast (but some of the poorest boroughs are in London, so it's a complex pattern).
With Corbyn's defeat in 2019 mere months before the pandemic began, the Labour Party shifted back towards the right, with left-wingers purged from the party if they did not kowtow to Keir Starmer. This leaves us with a situation where the only substantial difference between the two parties would be on social policy, but it goes without saying that economic policy is the overwhelming factor that determines if minorities can have a decent life. Worker-oriented movements since then have been largely not under the umbrella of major party leaderships, such as the Don't Pay movement in late 2022 that arose in the wake of dramatically rising energy prices where 3 million people vowed to not pay them (which did lead to results).
Most notably recently is the major upset in the constituency of Rochdale - the victory of George Galloway - who is the leader of the Workers Party of Britain, which describes itself as both socialist and socially conservative. This took place both in the context of aforementioned economic troubles, as well as anger over Israel's genocide of Gaza in the British population, especially in British Muslims. It remains to be seen how much of this is an isolated event, especially as Corbyn has, understandably, refused to collaborate with Galloway due to his socially conservative stances. The UK general election will be held at some point within the next 9 months or so, and might well be a shitshow depending on what happens domestically and geopolitically before then; parallels to the current American electoral shitshow with increasing anger over Biden are pretty apparent. The Conservatives are quite likely to lose given 14 years of uninspired rule if current polling is correct, but it truly is a race to the bottom.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is the United Kingdom! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
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Image is from this CNN article.
The DPRK's history has been a rollercoaster, with admirable highs and heartbreaking lows, most notably the Korean War and the fall of the USSR. Its steadfast commitment to Juche, a variant of Marxism-Leninism that focuses on self-sufficiency, has both made the DPRK a target for imperialist genocidal powers, and allowed them to survive these attacks.
Lately, we seem to be seeing a transition from surviving to thriving. China and the DPRK have always had a much more complicated history than Western education and media allows its population to know, with periods of quite strong disagreement - it's not the case that China is somehow the DPRK's master. Russia is the DPRK's other neighour that isn't US-occupied, and while they obviously differ substantially in ideology since the USSR fell, the tsunami of sanctions on Russia has changed things. The stick has been removed from the equation, with Russia facing no possible punishment from the West because they were unable to enact sanctions effectively and used all their ammunition in the first few barrages rather than turning the screws over time (I don't care if we're on the 14th sanctions package, it's all been meaningless for Russia since the end of 2022).
The carrot is also more visible, with an alliance making a lot of sense for both. Once again, Western education and media would have you believe a Parenti-esque reality in which Korea is a massive and unpredictable danger to the world, but is simultaneously so poor and destitute that their artillery pieces are made of wood and their missiles out of paper-mache. The truth is that Korea has innovated greatly in missile technology, with some of their weapons matching or even exceeding those of the Russians, hence the Russians' use of them in Ukraine. Russia also finds it advantageous to invest in Korea to strengthen the anti-hegemonic alliance's presence in the Pacific, countering the US-occupied lower half of the peninsula who has naturally sided with Ukraine. Additionally, Russia is investing deeply in the Arctic sea route. This will open up as climate change continues; is naturally quite defensible for Russia so long as Korea is there to provide further defense at its eastern edge; and is both a faster and safer route for Russia to access China - especially in a world where straits can be blockaded by even impoverished yet determined countries like Yemen. The situation in the Red Sea benefits Russia and China now, but in the coming years, the US may apply the same lesson for their own benefit elsewhere.
It is perhaps this new sense of self-confidence that has let Korea give up on reunification with its lower half via peaceful measures. A new Korean War would be devastating for both sides even if it remained non-nuclear, but with a rising DPRK and with the South falling yet further into hypercapitalist exploitation and misery, and a US that remains non-committal to its "allies" when times get difficult (as in Ukraine and Europe), a reality where Korea may finally hold the upper hand and have the ability to liberate its south may be approaching in the years and decades to come.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is *the DPRK! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
119
Image is from this Reuters article.
This week marks the one year anniversary of Honduras ceasing to recognize Taiwan and instead only recognizing China. Over that time period, China and Honduras have gone through several rounds of negotiating a free trade agreement, with trade expanding. Additionally, they have just signed a $275 million cooperation agreement, providing education infrastructure for Honduras.
The other major news piece relevant to Honduras is the battle against Prospera, a US-based crypto libertarian firm that sought to buy a private island in order to create an ancap paradise, in which Bitcoin would be legal tender. In 2022, Honduras killed the island's special status that made the deal possible, and so Prospera is seeking $11 billion in compensation.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Honduras! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
136
Bulletins and News Discussion from March 18th to March 24th, 2024 - Ra Ra Rasputin - COTW: Russia
(hexbear.net)
Image is of President Vladimir Putin, with his cook Prigozhin, though he is more famous for other things.
I'm assuming we all know what a "Russia" and a "Putin" is, so I'm skipping the background section.
On March 15th, Putin handily won the presidential election. This is perhaps one of the least surprising things to happen in the last couple years, and all claims and debates about electoral corruption are missing the point (in this particular election at least). The reason why Putin won is not fascist brainwashing or Putin having a high Persuasion/Intimidation DC, and it's not even really about the laws that make opposing the Ukraine War illegal. Wages are up significantly, unemployment is at record lows (for the post-USSR period, of course), as is poverty, and the ruble is about as stable as it could be given what the West has tried to do to it. The government has been forced to massively intervene in the economy to keep things afloat, buying up properties that have been ditched by foreign and domestic billionaires, though obviously Russia's wealthy are still plenty powerful. Inflation is up, but wages are comfortably outpacing it. And the Communist Party remains a relic of a bygone era, disconnected from the young people who might hypothetically propel a revolution.
Russia is still in the transition from switching to a Western-oriented export economy to an Eastern-oriented one. Nonetheless, Russia is now China's single largest oil supplier (unseating Saudi Arabia), delivering half of all their oil to China, and trade between the two countries has massively increased. Where Western brands have retreated from Russia (and not many actually have), more Russia-friendly corporations, and Russian businesses themselves, have filled the gaps.
By going through the news, I've seen a lot of economies that are not doing well at all. Most countries seem to be in that category. Either they have general growth but a deeply struggling populace, or the government is trying to keep the population afloat but running up huge debts in the process, or the government is failing on both counts. Russia is one of the few countries on the planet that I can confidently state is actually doing quite well objectively, which means it's doing extremely well relatively. Considering the Western economists regularly delivering portents of doom in early 2022, and salivating over how they were going to divide the country following the inevitable economic collapse, this is a hilarious state of affairs.
In the long term, their predictions may come true. It is entirely possible that a post-war Russia will slump, returning to neoliberal policies and continuing their nonsensical allergy to budget deficits. Russia might not be a mere gas station, but a substantial amount of the economy is made up of fossil fuel exports, which might be troublesome in a greener future, especially as China, their main oil market, is one of the few countries on the planet that seems serious about renewable/nuclear energy. And the limited labour force means that long-term growth is inherently limited without some creative measures, even with the potential influx of whatever remains of the population and territory that Russia seizes in Ukraine. Perhaps it is in this crucible of disillusionment and hardship, after seeing that good things are indeed possible if the government wishes them to be so, that a socialist Russia could rise again. But we aren't there yet, and the growth continues for now.
Apologies for the lack of updates (again!), I've been going through book titles again for the reading list (I've probably got a thousand or more to get through) and also trying to touch grass more. I'm not very good at balancing things out, I tend to do the hyperfocus-on-one-thing-until-it's-done approach.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Russia! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
95
Bulletins and News Discussion from March 11th to March 17th, 2024 - It's Eurover - COTW: Portugal
(hexbear.net)
This year really is just gonna be us swinging from election to election, I suppose. I feel Lenin's beaming red eyes on me.
Up next on our electoral tour is Portugal. The current government - a coalition of the center-left Socialists and the center-right Social Democrats - has been mired in corruption scandals, resulting in a general election being called a mere two years after the last one. The fascist and vaguely populist Chega party has gained significant support over the last two years due to the economic hardships. Yesterday, the Social Democrats secured a narrow win of 79 seats compared to the Socialists' 77. Chega, in third place at 48, would appear to be the best candidate for a coalition, though the leader of the Social Democrats has said that they would refuse a coalition with them due to their xenophobic views. Regardless, the fascist surge is worrying, if expected.
Portugal's economy is going pretty badly even as European countries go, with little growth in productivity or investment over the last decade. The origins of this crisis date back to Portugal making the euro their national currency in the early 2000s, thus surrendering their ability to control their own currency, becoming reliant on investment from Germany and France, and suffering greatly in the 2012 European debt crisis. Unemployment and low wages spurred emigration; in 2013, the youth employment rate was about 40%; this has only come down to 25% recently and is increasing again. The government is heavily reliant on debt for public spending, with a debt-to-GDP ratio skyrocketing to over 100% in the two decades since the turn of the millennium. The capitalist sector is simply not profitable enough and hasn't been for 40 years, which is only a problem if you are a capitalist economy. For more on the Portuguese economy, check out Michael Roberts' recent analysis, from which I obtained a lot of this information.
Inside Portugal is the same story playing out across much of Europe. A failing center or center-left political party, unable to cope with the economic troubles of the last few years due to absolute obedience to neoliberal policies. A fascist party rising, but with no alternative economic plan, hoping that perhaps oppressing minorities and going after "wokeism" will make their God, The Economy, rain blessings down on them again.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Portugal! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
115
Bulletins and News Discussion from March 4th to March 10th, 2024 - The Coalition of Losers - COTW: Pakistan
(hexbear.net)
Image is of a protest in Pakistan after the attempted assassination of Imran Khan in November 2022.
What a clusterfuck of an election.
Imran Khan, the previous official Prime Minister of Pakistan, was removed by the command of the United States in April 2022 in a no confidence motion. This made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Imran Khan and his supporters have protested since then against the Pakistani state, which is more-or-less governed by the military despite the furnishings of civilian rule. This has ranged from largely peaceful protests to trying to burn down and occupy houses and headquarters.
It was assumed by the Pakistani elite that they could make the problem go away by arresting Imran Khan and effectively forcing many PTI candidates to run as independents while hounding them with police raids and stopping them from campaigning - and adding salt on the wound by disabling social media access and mobile services on the day of the election to make it more difficult to co-ordinate. Fortunately, these people don't seem to quite understand how the internet works in the current day, and so Khan's supporters started up WhatsApp groups and improvised websites and apps to spread the word about which candidates to vote for, leading to Khan's party getting the plurality, though not the majority, of votes in the election.
This has created a rather depressed mood in the Pakistani elite. A coalition of eight parties joined together, obviously excluding the PTI, but this coalition is shaky and lacks much legitimacy, with two major parties inside it, the PML-N and PPP, being ideologically opposed on several issues. It has been regarded as "the coalition of losers" by Khan's supporters. The new Prime Minister is Shehbaz Sharif, who also ruled from April 2022 until August 2023 and is the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif, who served as Prime Minister three times before in the last few decades. With inflation at 30% and the economy greatly struggling, there are fears that things may only stay together for months, not years, before the coalition fragments and something else has to be done.
Your Monday briefing is here in the comments and here on the website. Your Thursday briefing is here in the comments and here on the website. Your Sundary briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Pakistan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
118
Bulletins and News Discussion from February 26th to March 3rd, 2024 - Breaking The Siege Of Omdurman - COTW: Sudan
(hexbear.net)
The war in Sudan has so far been marked by a lot of incompetency and mismanagement by government forces (the SAF). After months of bitter fighting, in late 2023, the opposing Rapid Support Forces suddenly expanded their control towards the southeast of Khartoum after not a lot of resistance, most notably taking the city of Wad Madani. This led the SAF supporters and officials to panic and point fingers at each other about what the hell the army is even doing, while RSF soldiers looted the city.
These victories led to a short period in late December and early January where diplomacy and peace talks were considered, but such attempts fell apart. The leader of the RSF visited various African countries, including meeting Paul Kagame in Rwanda, to boost his legitimacy. Then, the RSF attacked into South Kordofan and consolidated their hold on other areas.
The Sudanese capital of Khartoum sits on a river which divides it from the city to its west, Omdurman (see the post image). The SAF and RSF have been fighting over this grand urban area for the whole war, with the RSF holding most of Khartoum (with an entirely cut-off SAF force holding on in the center), with a similarly cut-off SAF force also in eastern Omdurman, up against the river. For 10 months, this force has been under siege - but no longer. In perhaps the first actual W of the war for the SAF, they finally managed to break the siege a week ago, pouring supplies in. This leaves a section of the RSF now cut off, though Omdurman is still not under full SAF control (and, who knows, the whole situation could once again go badly for the SAF).
Meanwhile, the Sudanese socioeconomic situation has completely collapsed, with potentially a 20% fall in GDP and 8 million people displaced, with 2 million from Khartoum alone. 18 million Sudanese, or about a third of the population, is in acute hunger, and 20 million children are out in school. The refugees streaming out of the country are causing knock-on effects in neighorboring countries like Chad. Nobody is even really counting the dead anymore.
Red is the government forces, the SAF. Blue is the RSF opposition. Other colours are various factions.
The Country of the Week is Sudan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
119
Bulletins and News Discussion for February 19th to February 25th, 2023 - The Shadow of Suharto - COTW: Indonesia
(hexbear.net)
Image is of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and the fastest sinking city in the world. A new capital is being built elsewhere in Indonesia.
I was going to make Indonesia the COTW anyway (unless something really massive happened somewhere else) due to the elections that might really designate the end of an era in Indonesian politics. Michael Roberts wrote up a big piece on Indonesia about a week ago, one day before the election began, so a lot of this information is coming from him.
Indonesia has been ruled by President Joko Widodo for 10 years, but is now barred from a third term constitutionally. Under his presidency, the Indonesian economy has seen fairly good GDP growth overall - about 5% per year, or an average of 4% per capita - and is broadly popular with the electorate. The biggest problems are the common ones, such as a lack of jobs and a high cost of living. Widodo's successors have naturally promised more jobs and an economic plan that clearly draws at least some inspiration from China's rise from the periphery to the heights of the world economy and manufacturing, but this seems pretty unlikely for Indonesia because, well, Indonesia is ruled by capitalist bourgeoisie parties and China is not. Indonesia's main gigs are palm oil, nickel ore, and oil, with internal manufacturing of these primary commodities only slowly growing and reliant on foreign labour.
Indonesia has a rather big employment problem. On the face of it, things don't seem bad, with an unemployment rate of only 5% - but this is only because it counts anybody who works even a couple hours per week. 60% of the workers in Indonesia are in the informal sector, with no real labour rights, sick pay, or guaranteed wages. And half of the ~8 million unemployed are young people. Indonesia is the sixth most unequal country on the planet, with at least 36% of the population in poverty, and the four richest men own as much as the bottom 100 million. This was a natural consequence of the policies of the dictator Suharto, who came to power in a coup overthrowing the communist nationalist leader Sukarno and killing one million communists, a period covered by Bevin's The Jakarta Method. At a fundamental level, not that much has changed since Suharto, and the country seems doomed to a path of slowing economic growth and massive amounts of environmental degradation under a plundering elite who will presumably fly off to New Zealand with the rest of them once the seas swallow the country, unless a communist movement can be rebuilt from ashes and can learn the lessons of 1965-66.
Though results have yet to be officially announced, it seems that 72-year-old Prabowo Subianto is overwhelmingly likely to have handily won the election. Once banned from the United States for human rights violations - a truly phenomenal feat - he has been the Minister of Defense since 2019, was an army lieutenant under Suharto and was his son-in-law. While this is obviously a particularly bad outcome, none of the other candidates seemed likely to fundamentally alter the trajectory of Indonesia, so the game was rigged from the start.
The Country of the Week is Indonesia! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
118
Bulletins and News Discussion from February 12th to February 18th, 2024 - The Prodigal Failson - COTW: Brazil
(hexbear.net)
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.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
115
Bulletins and News Discussion from February 5th to February 11th, 2024 - Then As Farce - COTW: Germany
(hexbear.net)
Image is of German farmers blocking the road near the Brandenburg Gate in early January 2024.
The ruling German coalition - the FDP, the SPD, and the Greens - has been in dire straits since the war in Ukraine began due to their steadfast commitment to destroying their country as much as possible in solidarity with Ukraine destroying themselves too. Scholz is deeply unpopular, with a record low approval of 20%, and his party's approval is even lower.
The German left has been entirely unable to take advantage of this situation, with Die Linke fragmenting due to split opinions on what position they should hold on Ukraine, among other issues. As a result, the major conservative party, the CDU, has gained a lot of voters over the past couple years. Most worrying, however, is the gains that the fascist party, the AfD, has made - from 10% in 2021 all the way to ~20% today. A significant chunk of the vote is likely protest votes due to the lack of an alternative, but a vote for fascists makes you a fascist nonetheless.
Recent controversies with the AfD - including an allegation that they held a secret meeting discussing a plan to mass-deport millions of migrants in an obvious parallel to Nazi meetings planning to remove all Jews from the country - has recently slightly damped approval for the AfD. This meeting generated counter-protests and condemnation from many Germans. It was later revealed that the meeting might not really have happened as alleged, but it doesn't actually matter, because the AfD's stance is being increasingly reflected by the ruling coalition, who recently introduced a bill allowing faster deportations of rejected asylum seekers and significant new powers for authorities in that regard, including potentially the criminalization of sea rescue organizations and imprisonment for aid workers.
The German government is increasingly considering banning the AfD, with their anxiety and motivation to do so rising as the AfD maintains and improves its position as Germany heads towards elections in late 2025. There are intermediate steps that could be done, such as revoking state funding, but if that doesn't work, then the party might well be banned. While I will never argue with fascist parties being banned, this probably won't fix anything, as the underlying economic and social conditions that are fueling these electoral shifts in the first place are not improving. Germany, the largest industrial power in Europe, is mired in a recession, particularly a manufacturing recession, from which there appears to be no escape. It has so far carefully shepherded its natural gas resources to keep the population as mollified as possible, but this has come at the expense of industry. In a trend starting from July 2022, manufacturing PMIs are still well below 50, reaching 45.5 in January 2024, which indicates decline. I suppose if you wanted to look on the bright side, it's better than it was in July 2023, where it was a whopping 38.8, so the rate of decline is becoming a little slower.
And this is just the domestic stuff. Germany has also famously sided with Israel to support them during the ICJ genocide case, has kowtowed to Netanyahu as they bond over being Genocide Experts, and maintains its support of Ukraine, continuing to send military gear and money to be converted to scrap metal by Russian artillery - rather than spending money on doing anything about the cost of living. In the face of a historic economic downturn, it has only more fervently stated its desire to remain militarily opposed to Russia for decades.
The Country of the Week is Germany! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
107
Bulletins and News Discussion from January 29th to February 4th, 2024 - Entering Vertically, Leaving Horizontally - COTW: Iran
(hexbear.net)
Title is a reference to Resistance imagery about how Israeli soldiers will enter Gaza alive but leave it in coffins - the same is true for American soldiers in the Middle East if the regional war expands.
The image is of the Fattah-1 Iranian hypersonic ballistic missile, which its creators boast can overcome any missile defense system on the planet, has a range of 1400 kilometers (and thus Iran can strike Israel), and has a terminal impact velocity of Mach 13.
Dozens of American soldiers have been injured and 3 have been killed on a base in the Middle East. There has been confused reports about whether the attack was on Syrian territory or Jordan's - the Al-Tanf base is in Syria, but Tower-22 in Jordan is another base that helps supply Al-Tanf, and Tower-22 is the one that is alleged to have been hit. These is the first confirmed deaths of American troops since the conflict began, though it's not likely that this is actually the first deaths after hundreds of drone/missile strikes throughout the region on American bases, unless you think American soldiers are having extremely timely heart attacks just after a missile hits.
The attack is certainly impactful, though it does also have considerably symbolism. Courtesy of John Helmer:
The operational success of the strike for the attackers is strategic. Tower-22 is a logistics, supply, and rear guard post for the Al-Tanf base which US troops are operating thirty kilometres north across the border in Syria. The attack demonstrates that both Tower-22 and Al-Tanf, Jordan and Syria, are newly vulnerable to weapons which the US forces have failed to detect and neutralize. Just as significantly, the massive US airbase called Muwaffaq Salti, 230 kilometres west across Jordan, is also vulnerable now.
It indicates that Iran now possesses Russian expertise in countering American equipment:
“This is a significant accomplishment,” one of the sources said. “Was the bypassing of the US air defence system at Tower-22 pulled off with Russian assistance? US bases generally rely on the C-RAM [Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar] system. It was sent to Ukraine last year where the Russians have been learning to defeat it. What now of American EW [electronic warfare]? They’ve been doing a fair job of knocking drones down up to now. It seems a ‘coincidence’ that, not a week after the meetings in Moscow with Arabs and Iranians, we see this success. It’s a success the circumstances of which, we can be sure, Biden and Austin are not keen to advertise.”
I am putting my take on the table right now: I am 99% certain that the US won't attack Iran directly. I think we are still quite a while away from that being a possibility. Much more likely is that Iranian officials in Iraq or Syria will be hit by a retaliatory strike, as Israel has done recently. It is a significant escalation nonetheless. And it comes as Israel seems to be gearing up for a suicidal war with Hezbollah.
The Country of the Week is Iran! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Updates continue to be AWOL - but I am cooking something. Hopefully.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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.
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I'm very conflicted on Corbyn, because on the one hand he is one of the few politicians on the planet outside of a socialist country that I do have genuine fondness for, but on the other hand, his leadership simply wasn't that effective. He might have won in 2019 had the media not totally banded against him, but he should have been much stricter on the party. It's the Western "anti-authoritarian" liberal brainworms in action I suppose - you enact any discipline as a left-winger and an instant later, people are photoshopping ushankas and Stalin's mustache onto you, but that's just what you need to do as a goddamn leader sometimes, and he's simply not a very good leader in that regard. So I don't think it would be a good idea for him to actually lead some kind of third party. Create one with his influence, absolutely - and he's a coward for not doing that - but actually lead it? Unless he's learned his lessons, then no.
It's a shame that Galloway has his socially conservative views, because he's exactly the kind of brash personality that I and many others have been wanting for so long.