Well, Iran and their allies’ response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren’t talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don’t really know where to look right now.
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 Iraq! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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The bulletins site is here!
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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.
I am declaring unlimited vendetta on anyone who starts boosting Walz. I will fight you. I will bite. I have 20 years of rage built up from living with those racist passive aggressive backstabbing jackasses, I lived under a year of police terror under the Walz regime, I am not letting anyone lesser evil that fuck. Tim Walz sent the US FUCKING ARMY to crush an anti-cop PoC uprising. That’s who he is, that’s what he did. He’s not a nice old man, he’s not a “progressive”, he’s not going to save Palestine, he’s not going to fix anything. He’s the competent fascist we believed was going to follow Trump and that’s why he’s being picked. They didn’t pick him for his progressive ideals, they picked him because he proved he’d be willing to send armed soldiers in to America’s streets to ruthlessly crush dissent Because he actually did that.
Twitter? Blocked.
Whatsapp? Blocked.
Facebook? Blocked.
Hexbear dot net is not blocked in Venezuela.
i have not ONCE seen kamala look or act remotely with genuine anger until pro-palestine protestors interrupted her. she almost always seems a bit upbeat even when assertive, but there she looked full of pure contempt.
Kamala’s response to pro-palestine protestors interrupting her speech
“You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise I’M SPEAKING”
Not exactly news but someone in Lebanon asked how to stop their fishtank from breaking due to Israeli sonic booms and the /r/aquarium mods removed it. The sub is now revolting
Lmao
Algerian Imane Khelif wins gold medal in Paris
Cool facts: The handgun in this legendary picture of Hamas Chief Political Officer Yahya Sinwar was acquired from an israeli special forces team that was discovered and ambushed in 2018 while they were trying to sneak into Gaza in an NGO truck.
To round out the day and give all sides of the electoralism debate some food today:
Cc: anyone here who thinks Kamala will be better for Gaza than Trump.
This was in Detroit, by the way.
The US is writing up a law to hold foreign states liable for not using western payment systems
the contra-Cramer index still holding true.
he’s since deleted this tweet
#StopTheSteal
The Trump/Bolsonaro-style “stop the steal” tactic has failed in Mexico. “3 parties submitted over 230 challenges to the electoral data, arguing that there were irregularities in the process. After the information was analyzed, the Electoral Court rejected them.”
Holy shit, now every fucking time a leftist wins an election, the conservatives and far-right will accuse them of fraud. This shit is getting boring. It’s always the same arguments.