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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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.
Swedish government broadcaster SVT is reporting on a folder containing advice on what to to “if the war or the crisis comes”. The folder will be distributed to all households this autumn.
Being a highly developed country poor in quality farmland, Sweden imports half of its food. This is an obvious weakness if “the war or the crisis” severs global supply chains. Authorities are warning that the result will be felt in shops “within days” if imports are stopped.
Luckily, the Swedish government knows what people should do if the shops suddenly run out of food: Forage for food like berries, fruit and mushrooms in the forest. I’m sure there will be plenty to replace the missing half of the food supply.
A spokesperson for the Swedish authorities says:
National resilience through personal responsibility. The perfect neoliberal strategy
What would you do instead? Maintain large national stockpiles of food, medicines and other critical goods? That would be socialism! You need to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get on that post-apocalyptical grindset.
That sounds a lot like socialism to me, almost as if markets and individualism can’t address crises
It sounds nice but when it comes as an addendum to “use your personal responsibility to scavenge for food in the wilderness” one might get the impression that it is just an empty platitude.
Yes, absolutely. The statement as a whole promotes individual solutions, that can lead to dangerous situations (certainly, no conflict will arise if a lot of people suddenly start foraging the same forests). I just thougt that it’s kind of funny how they still pay lip-service to collective approaches like that spokeperson did.
“don’t expect us to help you, start digging for grubs.”
Spend centuries destroying communtiy and third spaces. Create economic crisis and war. Supply lines collapse.
Help each other cause we’re not helping you lmao
Just raid shores of england, prissy furniture-builders
Swedes marching to the shoreline with flat-pack longships on trolleys.
Having the immigrants actually put them together, before tightening the visa requirements to require proof of work paying at least 80% of the national median salary once they’ve done the job.
I’m just gonna eat M voters if it comes to that
“SEEMS LIKE YOU NEED TO TAKE PERSONAL RESPONISIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS AND NOT BLAME OTHERS FOR TOUR OWN FAILINGS” shouts Hans von Childfucker as he is marched to the guillotine while be pelted with rotten fruit. The red banners flying high in the background as he prepares for his demise. He then utters his last words, “how was I supposed to know the peasants need food to eat?”