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.
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.
Just to hammer it home one more time for anyone here who unironically thinks that Kkkamala Harris intends to change course on Gaza:
Phil Gordon is her personal National Security Advisor.
Love to see liberals letting the mask slip on stuff like this
(I don’t actually love it, it is horrifying how many people are okay with genocide)
Like, we must secure the existence of our people and the future of our children lol.
Do they just… not understand that we’re an evil empire funding/arming these “foreigners” for their genocide so we can stay an empire or what?
I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t understand that, cuz I didn’t either until recently. The whole US education and propaganda apparatus really makes you just think that we’re a strong powerful country but that we don’t directly do imperialist/colonial shit, and that the reason the world is in turmoil is local problems etc.
Still though, even before I understood this dynamic, in the face of an actual genocide I would feel compelled for us to “do something” about it, like literally anything.
It’s interesting to me how many libs don’t understand that going forward as a murderer/genocider is also something that can affect one’s future.
I guess it’s more of what not believing in material conditions can do to a m.f.
I’m not convinced they realize the world is a real place
If you really want to kick shit off with liberals like that, tell them that if they can’t oppose genocide, then they don’t deserve abortion rights/voting rights/whatever their pet issue is.
“I don’t think Americans should be allowed to vote. I mean when they vote you get genocide. Clearly something is wrong with their culture.”
Just
“Did you know most Palestinians voted for Hamas?” But true and for America
Lmao nothings “confusing” about your beliefs
The confusing part is why you get upset when we point out youre a bunch of fascist bigots because those are your publicly stated beliefs
If Tim Walz were a “foreigner” they’d be attacking him for “using chemical weapons against his own people.”
The new democratic slogan:
Better them than us!
B…b…but her tone is harsher! And walz reminds me of my dad.
Anyone that thought Harris won’t just be Biden’s second term (but with working brain cells) is a fool
I don’t think anybody really thought different (at least not here I would hope) but “bidens second term bit with a working brain” is objectively better than “bidens second term where he continues to make policy decisions based on widely debunked Israeli propoganda and he considers pushing the big red button because he doesnt want to die alone”
Please don’t interpet this as support or endorsement
I disagree on it being Biden’s second term. She has nothing when it comes to policy and convictions which Biden at least had. People would really be voting for the soulless void of the democratic party machine.
She has the oh so important policy of ironclad support for Israel. Otherwise yeah, the two of them are better spoken but I haven’t heard anything of substance, not that I’m paying to much attention but like, we have homelessness problem, opioid epidemic rages on, not to mention climate initiatives which Joe passed but she will need to pass much more. I hope they can at least come out with some concrete policy initiatives soon enough and don’t expect to ride the “weird” wave forever
international humanitarian law has one single clause: the US can do anything it wants to anyone at any time, and disagreeing makes you authoritarian terrorists
That’s the International Rules Based Order™️, baby!
Hasan in shambles lol
Was he saying she’s going to back an arms embargo? I don’t normally watch him when he’s talking politics, only IRLs or if he has a guest I like on.
He was glazing Kamala saying she will stop the genocide and she has a better position on Palestine which she immediately abandoned after getting ahead of Trump in polls.
HasanL
God I hate how Charlie Brown steamers are with the Dems.
I wonder what it would take for Burgerstanies to realize that they actually don’t live in a democracy and their politicians are at best middle managers for a conglomerate of financiers, MIC/Security apparatus and energy/food monopolists. Does the Lockheed Martin CEO have to go in the Senate and start swinging his dick around screaming “I OWN THIS BITCH” while all the senators applaud? I mean Netanyahu basically did that and still nobody gave a shit.
How would she protect civillians by fueling weapons sales that bomb those civillians?
They could have pretended to do something so libs can act like they are not voting for a genocide loser