Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 3d ago 100%

    If I went out with even a tenth of the courage of Sinwar, I'd be happy.

    I had no idea that he was fighting alongside his soldiers this whole time, or at least on occasion. Makes him surviving a year of war and genocide even more impressive than it already as.

    I think we all knew that Sinwar's death was inevitable, especially after the death of Nasrallah proved there was no reluctance about killing Resistance leaders (versus trying to capture for intel, propaganda purposes, etc). They were both ageing men in an occupation where you usually die young. The Resistance will not weaken - if anything, it will grow stronger, especially with the video proof that even the leaders are war heroes through-and-through. They'll probably have to start turning down new fighters in Lebanon and Gaza, they'll arrive in such large numbers.

    The modern Che Guevara.

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 4d ago 100%

    if Ukraine wins: look at how smol little Ukraine managed to take on all these different countries and organizations all by themselves with zero aid whatsoever, no help, Russia just sucks that much and Ukrainians are truly the ubermenschen

    if Ukraine loses: well, it wasn't really a fair fight anyway, smol little Ukraine got ganged up on by a bunch of imperialist terrorist regimes, very unfair, very much against the rules-based international order

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 6d ago 100%

    We are getting to the point where Israel is having to choose which missiles to let through, which is not a great spot to be in when your population has a very low tolerance for casualties.

    You really don't wanna be in a position where you have to protect your civilian centers just on the off-chance that Iran will hit them (even though they and Hezbollah and Yemen don't seem interested in causing mass civilian death and instead strike military facilities) while leaving your airbases and planes unprotected, which are the only functional part of the Israeli armed forces given that their soldiers seem more interested in taking selfies and wistfully gazing out of windows in Gaza and then getting blown into chunks than actually executing a competent invasion strategy.

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 14th to October 20th, 2024 - Paper Tigers
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 6d ago 100%

    Militarily? Both absolute and relative decline, the invention of a small quantity of high-tech arms does not at all make up for industry shifting abroad, and other countries now have militaries that can take on the American military especially if it insists on dividing itself between a bunch of wars around the world

    Economically? Increased absolutely but decreased in relative terms, largely thanks to China which has skyrocketed (and is bringing dozens of countries up with them). The end of the process of dedollarization is decades and millions of deaths away (just as the transition between the sterling/gold standard and the dollar took decades and two world wars which killed tens of millions of people) but the fact that we're even on that path now is a clear sign that alternatives have grown stronger

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  • Image is a frame taken from [this video](https://tankie.tube/w/wsPCRmkX6hP77Fh8tqn9AL) of Iranian missiles raining down on Israel without interception due to a weak and depleted air defense system after a year of war and genocide. --- Mao, 1956: > Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger. > When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end. > Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time. --- [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3627378?scrollToComments=false) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on: [UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news.](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://web.archive.org/web/20240826232752/https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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. [Simplicius](https://substack.com/@simplicius76), who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good. On the ground: [Patrick Lancaster](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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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    Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 1w ago 100%

    man, I really fucking hate it when I establish a settler-colonial regime upon acts of great violence and cruelty in order to make the local and regional populations break, and then those populations start resistance movements and get guns, and then I assassinate the leaders of those resistance movements because that'll surely break them this time, ah shit half the region is pissed off at me, well if I just keep attacking them then they'll surely break and we've labelled this strategy "deterrence" so it must be real, but now those resistance movements have new leaders and better guns and lots more of them, so now I'll just keep attacking them and once again kill their leaders and surely, finally this time they'll break, oh fuck they've come back with yet more leaders and yet more guns, okay well surely...

    but yeah anyway I'm sure at the end of this process we'll eventually be able to live in peace, we'll just kill everybody that opposes us for centuries on end until the buildings have turned to rubble and the rubble into stones and the stones into dust x100 and this entire time we're being repeatedly attacked from all angles FOR NO FAULT OF OUR OWN, yeah I reckon this is a sustainable long-term strategy, hey wait what did you just say about American arms production rates

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 1w ago 100%

    I think the most cynical interpretation is that they're kinda just occupying forces but without the baggage of having them necessarily be Western. The slightly less cynical view is that they're just there to make the UN seem like it's accomplishing anything while not actually doing anything because the UN is more-or-less just another diplomatic/military arm of the United States. It's like pretending to work on something innocuous like writing emails or whatever while your boss walks behind you, but your actual secret job is being a drone operator murdering children all day long.

    I think the UN could probably be shifted towards doing some good in the world, it's not necessarily fatally flawed from the foundation upwards unlike most US imperialist institutions, but in practice I think that it'll go out once the US hegemon has well and truly fallen, just like the League of Nations collapsed once the British Empire/Western Europe was in its final years as the hegemon, and it'll be replaced by a China-headquartered version sooner or later. If for no other reason than in 20 years, the US will have probably sanctioned every country outside of Europe and getting diplomats into New York will be a total nightmare.

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 1w ago 100%

    Israel is at its weakest moment and continues to get weaker; there will be no return to the status quo, nor even an attempt to do so.

    Do not mistake the desperate flailing and biting of a terminally wounded animal with a leg torn off and an arrow in its side as a sign of strength and power.

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 1w ago 100%

    Yeah, I really recommend it if you want some good in-depth historical analysis on how austerity, neoliberalism, anti-communism and fascism all links together into a coherent whole. It's definitely laid out more like a thesis-turned-book rather than something more pop-politics, but I never found it that hard to understand, the arguments and chapters are all laid out very well

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 1w ago 100%

    this is literally TikTok manifestation but for geopolitics. if we keep saying that something is true, it has to become true, even as we feed the next wave of Israeli soldiers in to take selfies 500 feet away from a border village and get obliterated by Hezbollah rockets. it's always worked for us before, why wouldn't it work now?

    trying to manufacture alternative realities only really works if you have a decent chance of, y'know, winning, and therefore stand a chance in the future of creating those alternative realities that you've been establishing via propaganda. there is nothing that Israel could do short of carpet bombing southern Lebanon with nukes that would meaningfully degrade Hezbollah. it is simply too deeply embedded, both literally (miles of tunnels underground), socially, economically, and politically. taking out Nasrallah and the subsequent bombings since then have taken Hezbollah from 100% strength to like, 99.5% strength. Hamas is still very much intact and still killing Zionists after a year of war and they are almost entirely shut off from the world; Hezbollah can keep going as long as there's a border to smuggle goods across, and it is impossible for Israel to totally occupy Lebanon. they can barely occupy a small village.

    this leads me to believe that the Israeli strategy will be to eventually withdraw and stop trying after taking colossal losses, then in the classic Israeli fashion, declare victory and say that Hezbollah has been destroyed, but I'm unsure what the point of that will be when the missiles keep firing over the border and settlers are still unable to return to the north because Hezbollah will still be 95% intact.

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 1w ago 100%

    it's like in Ukraine when the Russian army had been totally destroyed for the fourteen time in the war after 100,000 soldiers were killed in a human wave attack because Putin is both evil and stupid, and so the only conceivable explanations as to why Ukraine had not fully taken back its territory is either a) Russian ghosts fighting back, or b) Ukraine was firing on its own troops whenever they tried to advance

    like, the West just kept asserting that Russia had run out of missiles and even though they were repeatedly wrong, they didn't really have anything else to do other than keep repeating it in the hopes that it maybe it would come true. perhaps a Russian weapons manufacturer would see the headlines and go "damn, really? alright, I won't check the latest figures from my factory, I'm just gonna turn this place into a bakery."

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  • ‘Zionists don’t deserve to live,’ suspended Columbia activist said. Now his group rescinds its apology and calls for violence | CNN
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 1w ago 100%

    Yeah, personally, I think it was a really bad idea for the Jews and the Nazis to engage in such a counterproductive, endless cycle of violence against each other. The Nazis would kill a million of them, and the Jews would kill a few dozens in an uprising here or there.

    I think that the Jews ultimately should have been the bigger man, so to speak, and came to the table and agreed that the Nazis had a right to exist, which would have clearly meant that the Nazis would be forced to agree and let the Jews be. Just like today, in Israel and Palestine. Hamas should have promised to take down the concentration camp they had set up over the Tel Aviv urban area, in exchange for the Israelis taking down the Gaza concentration camp. A very fair deal, in my opinion.

    We must both be enlightened centrist pacifists, unlike the immature tankies on this godforsaken website. It is only through peaceful agreement and diplomacy that issues can be settled and violence just leads nowhere. The wisest man in history, Gandhi, once said that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. He also said that "The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs," which shows his real commitment to forgiving your oppressors.

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  • They turn on you so fast once you become inconvenient to their narrative
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 1w ago 100%

    Reminds me of this quote:

    We should also wonder how our appreciation of the sophistication and totality of the propaganda apparatus and its ongoing repression squares with the peculiar kind of “critical” media that does make it to wide circulation, usually to universal praise from both the mainstream and the counter-cultural “left.” [...] Disaster movies insist that the end of the world is inevitable, that we are all complicit in ecological devastation for not doing our part recycling cans — this is environmental critique. Triumphant, handsome, charismatic, “alpha” men climb to the top of their respective empires of crime in highest-budget four-season shows and are awarded the highest accolades in their profession — this passes for an indictment of capitalism. Eileen Jones insightfully observes, about David Fincher’s Gone Girl:

    Even as I watched it and shuddered with revulsion, I had to admit it — Fincher’s got our number. He’s figured out how to regularly wow contemporary audiences, to present us with the appalling truth of how despicable we are in a way that never really strikes home, by alternating coldly disapproving, feel-bad effects with conspiratorial smirking ones that remove any real sting. He so often uses the trappings of film noir to showcase our “badness,” but since we’re all perverts together, it’s just the “badness” of S&M sex-play, so who cares?

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 1w ago 100%

    why would the US sanction something causing a massive amount of destruction and killing innocent civilians? they should be sending aid to the hurricane

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 2w ago 100%

    You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 2w ago 100%

    Is Israel just taking out its impotency on the civilians of Palestine and Lebanon? Because they damn sure haven’t eliminated Hamas or Hezbollah

    I think this is what they are doing in practice, but in theory I think the idea behind hurting civilians during wars is/was to a) reduce morale and willingness to fight in that country because the losses might become too great; b) weaken the resolve of the fighters themselves because you're probably hitting their families at least occasionally; c) enforce a "racial hierarchy" in which you regard the life of a single one of your countrymen to be equal to 100 Gazans/Lebanese/Yemenis/etc; and d) be seen by your own countrymen as doing something to fight the enemy to make them feel better about the losses you're receiving

    the issue is that historically, none of these ideas actually function and anti-colonial movements were generally victorious regardless. I suppose the only lasting benefit to the colonizers is that the country they've ravaged with war is now so fucked up and damaged that it necessitates a continuing relationship to either them or some other capitalist nation to trade with and rebuild, though even this is declining as a factor because of anti-hegemonic alternatives like China, Russia, Iran, etc.

    so Israel is just falling into the same trap as so many other colonial or imperialist projects in the past, believing that a sufficient amount of violence will be enough to dissuade resistance to their regime, and that, sure, it might make them unpopular and morally reprehensible to use increasingly violent methods but this is simply the price of maintaining the project. this isn't how it actually works; breaking international laws and doing ever more violent acts is not a sign of (albeit evil) strength and power, it actually just makes you lose. there's no edgy "I have sacrificed everything and killed thousands of innocents but attained ultimate power and now nobody can stand before me!" scene at the end of this path; everybody just hates you and your shitty project collapses. there are countless historical examples here, from Nazi Germany to South Africa.

    there is a reason why imperialist exploitation has shifted from a violent, bloody past in which cities were looted by soldiers and civilian populations genocided by armies, to a modern system which is less outwardly violent and instead relying on the banality of debt and poverty and unemployment to enforce inequality. it's easier to find a common enemy if they're sending their armies through your land because some feudal lord or early capitalist demanded it. it's considerably harder to battle an enemy which consists of like, IMF-enforced austerity.

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  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 2w ago 100%

    yeah, this is really why the US colour revolution strategy is doomed in the medium to long term. the global orientation towards China and away from the US isn't because of ideological reasons, but because that's where the goddamn markets and profit are. you're basically asking countries to sacrifice their economies on the altar of Western extraction, primitive accumulation, and shock therapy. with Western military might rapidly swirling the drain, the strength of the stick is failing alongside that of the carrot.

    there are still some true believers that are willing to destroy their countries for the West (Milei is/was among them) but they're going to get rarer and rarer as the incentives fall and alternatives rise. the ideology of neoliberalism is really the last major bastion of this international strategy and when it crumbles and stops spreading as it inevitably will, whether that takes five years or fifty, it's gonna be all over for the US

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 2w ago 100%

    I wonder if Israel is trying to do the same thing to Iran that Iran did to Israel - forcing them to wait for the response and drain their resources by acting like it's imminent every night. I don't really think it'll have the same effect though because Iran is not under the same pressure that Israel is, so time is on Iran's side

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  • Bulletins and News Discussion from October 7th to October 13th, 2024 - Happy International Paragliding Day!
  • SeventyTwoTrillion SeventyTwoTrillion 2w ago 100%

    The History Expansion Packs dropped in April and now a week ago as Iran was obviously not responding to any prior events and was merely attacking for no reason because history wasn't there yet

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  • [Image is here.](https://www.britannica.com/sports/paragliding) --- One year on. Hundreds of thousands are dying or dead, millions are displaced, the Middle East is undergoing its greatest changes in a generation, Iran has directly attacked Israel twice in one year, and Yemen has proven that the US Navy ain't worth shit. We are the closest we have been to nuclear war (discounting accidents) in decades, but also the fall of Israel. Because one day, the prisoners of a concentration camp paraglided over a wall. --- [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3575345?sort=New) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on: [UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news.](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://web.archive.org/web/20240826232752/https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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. [Simplicius](https://substack.com/@simplicius76), who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good. On the ground: [Patrick Lancaster](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of the aftermath of an Israeli bombing of Beirut in 2006.](https://www.britannica.com/event/2006-Lebanon-War) --- We are now almost one year into the war and genocide in Gaza. Despite profound hardship, the Gazan Resistance continues its battles against the enemy, entirely undeterred. Despite Israeli proclamations throughout 2024 that they have cleared out Hamas from various places throughout Gaza, we still see regular attacks and ambushes against Zionist forces. Just today (Monday), Al Qassam fighters ambushed and destroyed another convoy of Israeli vehicles. The predictions early on in the war were that Israel would defeat Hamas in mere months, needing only until December, then January, and so on. This has proven very much untrue. Israel is stuck in the mud; unable to destroy their enemy due to their lack of knowledge about the "Gaza Metro" and, of course, a lack of actual fighting skill, given how many times I've seen Zionists getting shot while they gaze wistfully out of windows. The same quagmire will occur in Lebanon, only considerably worse. Both Nasrallah and Sinwar possess a similar strategy of luring Zionist forces onto known, friendly territory, replete with traps and ambushes, to bleed them dry of equipment, manpower, and the will to continue fighting. [The scale of the invasion could fall anywhere on the spectrum from "very limited" - more of a series of raids on Hezbollah positions than truly trying to occupy land - to a total invasion which would seek to permanently take control of Southern Lebanon.](https://thecradle.co/articles-id/27031) Neither is likely to destroy, or even substantially diminish Hezbollah's fighting abilities. This is not wishful thinking: Hezbollah has convincingly defeated Israel twice before in its history, pushing them from their territory, and both times Hezbollah had almost no missiles and a limited supply of other equipment, relying on improvisation as often as not. The Hezbollah of 2024 is an entirely different organization to that of the early 2000s. Attempts to drive wedges between Hezbollah and the rest of Lebanon are also unlikely to succeed. Hezbollah is not just a military force, it is extremely interlinked into various communities throughout Lebanon, drawing upon those communities to recruit soldiers. Throughout its history, it has provided education, healthcare, reconstruction, and dozens of other services one would attribute to a state. Amal Saad's recent suggestion of using "quasi-state actor" as a more respectful replacement for the typical "non-state actor" seems advisable. [And the decentralized command structures, compartmented leadership, strong succession planning, and aforementioned community ties almost entirely neutralizes the effectiveness of assassinations.](https://xcancel.com/richimedhurst/status/1840418162283585710) Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem has confirmed that [Hezbollah's path has been set by Nasrallah](https://thecradle.co/articles-id/27077), and his martyrdom will not stop nor even pause their efforts. Additionally, he confirmed that despite the recent attacks by Israel which nominally focussed on destroying missile depots, Hezbollah's supply of weapons has not been degraded, and they are still only using the minimum of their capabilities. --- [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3524606?scrollToComments=false) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on: [UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news.](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://web.archive.org/web/20240826232752/https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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. [Simplicius](https://substack.com/@simplicius76), who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good. On the ground: [Patrick Lancaster](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of a Hezbollah missile attack on a military camp west of Jenin. --- The situation between Hezbollah and Israel is rapidly escalating, with massive bombing campaigns on southern Lebanon by Israel predominantly on civilians (as the tunnels in South Lebanon are mostly unreachable to the Zionists, just like in Gaza), while Hezbollah and its allies respond with missile attacks predominantly on Israeli military facilities. Israel is spreading an evacuation order to the residents of southern Lebanese villages while also bombing their routes of escape and civilian infrastructure, similar to a terror tactic used widely in Gaza. Northern Israel is currently under military censorship to hide their losses, so we get very little information other than what the Resistance provides and what videos and images get through the censors. I don't know if Israel will dare a ground incursion soon, but it seems fairly likely in the coming days or weeks. --- [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3471631?sort=New) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on: [UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news.](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://web.archive.org/web/20240826232752/https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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. [Simplicius](https://substack.com/@simplicius76), who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good. On the ground: [Patrick Lancaster](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of China's ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Sheng, meeting Taliban Prime Minister Hasan Akhund in September 2023.](https://archive.ph/ssr8I) I know the Rambo title card is a hoax. The COTW was chosen in the wake of the aborted sequel to the attempted assassination of Trump being performed by a guy who is VERY enthusiastic about Ukraine, to the point of trying to sneak Afghan soldiers into Ukraine by setting up a house in Pakistan to house them and then further transport them. He also apparently offered to send thousands of Afghan soldiers to Haiti to help them combat gang violence. Whomst among us doesn't have the numbers of thousands of Afghan soldiers on speed-dial. Do you reckon there's a group chat? Anyway, while there is still no official recognition of the Taliban's government by any country, China has taken a different course than the late USSR and the US - forming economic in-roads, rather than trying their own invasion. This has been a big boon for the struggling country, with various mines and oil and agriculture deals helping keep things barely afloat. A total disintegration of the social fabric of Afghanistan is not in the interest of any of the powers that border it - China, Pakistan, and Iran, with Russia not too far away - so an interesting dynamic of helping-without-official-recognition has been established. I wonder who will be the first country to fully recognize them? --- 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 **Afghanistan**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [More detail here.]() [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3414004?sort=New) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on: [UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news.](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://web.archive.org/web/20240826232752/https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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. [Simplicius](https://substack.com/@simplicius76), who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good. On the ground: [Patrick Lancaster](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 sourced from [this article.](https://archive.ph/mekvR) --- It takes very little effort to find an article from Western state propaganda decrying Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas as authoritarian and rife with human rights abuses. This is the natural reaction the US has to any successful liberation movement. This [fairly long report](https://www.workers.org/2024/09/80484/) from Jason Cohen, a socialist who travelled to Nicaragua one week ago, should quell any suspicions. He describes a country with high political consciousness among the masses, who are working to construct critical infrastructure for the country and their communities. There is a virtual education system that is free across the entire nation, which serves the dual goal of democratizing education and ensuring that those in rural areas or without much free time for university can still achieve degrees and a quality education; and these classes cover technical skills in the production of infrastructure and agriculture, but also political and ideological education in order to counter the fascist propaganda produced by imperialist nations abroad. While Nicaragua is deeply invested in its nationality and national figures who led to their socialist revolution, such as Sandino, they are also immensely proud of their indigneous history, recognizing it as also part of their anti-colonial history which continues to the present day. Additionally, they honour the struggles of other nations on the continent, such as the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, as well as Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. Countries around the world are also celebrated and admired, such as Burkina Faso; during the Reagan administration, Nicaragua and Burkina Faso were comrades in arms, and now Traore is continuing the legacy of Sankara's anti-imperialism in the present. Perhaps most relevant today is their dedication towards Palestine, involving the creation of the Parque Palestina (shown in the post image), in which the Palestinian flag flies alongside the flag of Nicaragua. In July, Leila Khaled of the PFLP gave a speech in Nicaragua, in which the solidarity of the two nations was highlighted. --- 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 **Nicaragua**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [More detail here.](https://hexbear.net/comment/5364007) [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3363121) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of the Cuban flag and the Pride flag on the Havana Health Ministry building.](https://sojo.net/articles/cuba-s-progressive-christians-are-making-their-country-more-inclusive) --- Inspired by a [highly upvoted recommendation](https://hexbear.net/comment/5326565) by [@Commiejones@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/Commiejones): > We need to kill the Mega Posting Wars meme. It wasn't very funny to start with and now I get the feeling some people are taking it way too seriously. Clogging up the news thread with bullshit just to try to out post the trans mega is just dumb and annoying. The News Megathread is now under trans martial law: 1) Loving trans people on this site and elsewhere is strictly mandatory. 2) Posting about the "comment wars" between the trans and news megathreads is now strongly discouraged inside the news megathread. No shame in it - I also recently made jokes about it - but though they were almost always just jokes, it was unrelated to current events and was beginning to feel more like padding the comment count instead of trying to improve the quality of the thread. If you want to boost comments and engagement here, then post articles and analysis! --- The COTW (Chemical of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific chemical every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied chemicals. If you've wanted to talk about the chemical 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 Chemicals of the Week are **Estrogen and Testosterone**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3311273) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 Black Agenda Report article by the Communist Party of Kenya.](https://www.blackagendareport.com/unmasking-rutos-betrayal-and-mobilizing-kenyas-sovereignty-and-justice) --- In June, large anti-government protests shook Kenya. President Ruto and his parliament were attempting to pass the new Finance Bill 2024, which, among other things, [would have hiked taxes on the population](https://archive.ph/k2bYj), with a 16% sales tax on bread and a 25% duty on cooking oil, as well as new taxes on financial transanctions and vehicle ownership. There would also have been levies on women's sanitary products and digital goods such as phones, among other measures affecting hospitals. Hundreds of protestors stormed the parliament building and began to tear the place apart. Shortly afterwards, on June 26th, [Ruto announced that he was withdrawing the bill](https://archive.ph/4ZPnv), calling the tens of deaths and hundreds of injuries "unfortunate". A couple weeks later, [Ruto then fired his entire cabinet](https://archive.ph/Jv82r) (aside from his foreign minister) and communicated his wish to the nation to form a "broad-based government". Funnily enough, in July, it was announced that [the majority of positions were to be filled by members of the old cabinet](https://archive.ph/bVctk), while other positions were taken by members of the opposition. This has prompted scepticism among the population, including calls to resign, but there haven't (yet) been any major anti-government events to pressure this outcome. The Communist Party of Kenya has been working to get some of their comrades back after they were abducted by the police during the protest period, and have otherwise supported the protests against Ruto. The measures in the bill were strongly encouraged by the IMF. [Kenya's debt is currently around $80 billion](https://archive.ph/eUl9V), of which about 10% is owed to China for infrastructure projects (such as a railway linking the capital, Nairobi, to the port city of Mombasa, as well as 11,000 kilometers of road throughout the country). The rest is owed to a combination of the US, IMF, World Bank, and Saudi Arabia. More than half of government revenue is going towards repaying the debt - but despite these massive payments, it has only grown. The most recent round of IMF plundering (and the impetus for current events) began in 2021, when they offered a 38-month programme to "help" Kenya, which would involve the usual warfare on the poor and the dismemberment of any useful societal institutions. --- 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 **Kenya**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [More detail here.](https://hexbear.net/comment/5305429) [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3260017) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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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    https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/54d9a20b-a68f-4b71-8439-8c78b825bddf.png

    Image is a snapshot taken from the recent Hezbollah video ["Our Mountains, Our Treasures"](https://xcancel.com/PalestineChron/status/1824369296237023638), showcasing their extensive underground fortifications, supply lines, and weaponry. --- iran can't keep doing this to me, they've gotta respond soon, right? I'm gonna run out of analysis about countries soon, oh god --- The COTW (Child of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific child every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied children. If you've wanted to talk about the child 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 child. The Child of the Week is **Hassan LargePenis**! He is chad-and-cuck rater and general commenter [@LargePenis@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/LargePenis)'s son, [born over a month ago](https://hexbear.net/comment/5102934). [@Greenleaf@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/Greenleaf) recommended I have him as the COTW for a week and I finally got around to it. [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3202852?sort=New) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of one of Ireland's only manned navy ships, the Samuel Beckett. Image sourced from [this BBC article](https://archive.ph/BNFlK). --- Putler has been HUMILIATED by the Kursk offensive and this proves that Russia's army is in tatters and unable even to defend its own territory. However, it is simultaneously true that Russia poses an existential threat to countries thousands of miles away, as this [recent Politico article demonstrates](https://archive.ph/Wzwb7). Ireland - a country that immediately springs to mind as one surrounded by enemies - is being bullied due to its lack of military. > Despite bearing responsibility for 16 percent of the EU’s territorial waters, and the fact that 75 percent of transatlantic undersea cables pass through or near Irish waters, Ireland is totally defenseless. And I mean completely unable to protect critical infrastructure, or even pretend to secure its own borders. [...] Ireland’s “navy” of six patrol vessels is currently operating with one operational ship due to chronic staff shortages. [...] Ireland simply has no undersea capabilities. How could it, when it barely spends 0.2 percent of GDP on security and defense? And it has, in effect, abdicated responsibility for protecting the Europe’s northwestern borders. For all we know, the dreaded sea-people from the Bronze Age Collapse could soon emerge from the North Atlantic. > Unfortunately, things are even worse up in the skies. Ireland has no combat jets, and it’s the only country in Europe that can’t monitor its own airspace due to the lack of primary radar systems. Instead, the country has outsourced its security to Britain in a technically secret agreement between Dublin and London, which effectively cedes control over Irish air space to the Royal Air Force. This must be the luck of the Irish — smile and get someone else to protect you for free. While this is very silly, rearmament has long been a part of US imperial strategy on an economic level. Desai, discussing the US imperial strategy in the WW2 period: > By 1947 [...] the domestic postwar consumer boom was nearing its end. While financing exports became more urgent, the 1946 elections returned a Congress unlikely to approve further loans. Now the Truman Administration concocted the ‘red menace’ to ‘scare the hell out of the country’, enunciated the Truman Doctrine of US support for armed resistance to ‘subjugation’ which launched the cold war, and Congress granted $400 million to prevent left-wing triumphs in Greece and Turkey in 1947. One reading of history states that the US was so intimidated by the USSR that this forced a policy of massive arms production even outside of official wartime. Why this arms production is not occurring today can be puzzling, and (very reasonably) explained by neoliberals exporting industrial production overseas. However, a different historical reading can explain both the first Cold War, *and* the ongoing situation in which American weaponry is being almost purposefully given in insufficient numbers to give Ukraine a chance of victory and thus only prolonging their suffering (while generating massive profit for the military-industrial complex): > **In this sense the Cold War was not the cause of US imperial policy but its effect.** It combined financing exports with fighting combined development by national capitalisms as well as communism. When such ‘totalitarian regimes’ threatened ‘free peoples’, ‘America’s world economic responsibilities’ included aid to countries battling them. By selling massively expensive weapons to Europe, America could simultaneously guarantee export markets for its industries, trap Europe into reliance on American industries at the expense of their own, and divert European funds away from constructing factories which could compete with American ones. Providing a way to defend against Soviet communism (and now Russian "imperialism") is merely a happy side-effect, and so the lack of effectiveness of American weaponry is causing no great panic among the military-industrial complex, nor an urgent plan to quintuple artillery shell production or Patriot missile production - the deals for F-35s and such are still there, and they are what matter. --- 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 **Ireland**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [More detail here.](https://hexbear.net/comment/5248087) [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3149865?sort=New) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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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    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.](https://hexbear.net/comment/5218201) [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3095249?sort=New) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of a colectivo: an armed group, usually operating in impoverished areas, which act to support and defend the socialist government of Venezuela. They are often derided as vigilante terrorist groups which prop up the government, because cops are only bad when they are socialist and not murdering minorities, I suppose. --- Maduro's party, the PSUV, has won the election after a staggering amount of propaganda by the opposition, who said their polls suggested they were going to win and that Maduro's loss was inevitable. The reaction across Latin America is what one would expect. Left-leaning leaders are generally respecting the results and congratulating Maduro, while those on the right and/or are US puppets (such as in semirecently-couped Peru) are calling for recounts, or even that the election was illegitimate. The US itself is also unhappy about the results. We shall soon see if their unhappiness boils over into yet another coup attempt. Personally, I think they should have ran Guaido again. ![guaido-despair](https://lemm.ee/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hexbear.net%2Fpictrs%2Fimage%2Fb475ff23-4fba-49fc-a338-f7349b491710.png "emoji guaido-despair") ![guaido](https://lemm.ee/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hexbear.net%2Fpictrs%2Fimage%2Fb19eeff5-1d1e-43fc-93bb-a1c7950c8837.png "emoji guaido") Thank you to [@Redcuban1959@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/Redcuban1959) for the election coverage here, and everything else they do in the news megathread. --- 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 **Venezuela**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [More detail here.](https://hexbear.net/comment/5189047) [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/3044162) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of vehicles set aflame by protestors near a government building.](https://archive.ph/CoEkh) --- Since July 1st, students have protested the unpopular proposal in which 30% of government jobs would be reserved for veterans of the 1971 War of Independence and their relatives. In a country with a youth unemployment rate of around 20% and a population of 170 million, a large number of otherwise eligible and competent people would have been forced out due to favouritism for veterans. As with basically every country on the planet over the last couple years, Bangladesh is suffering from inflation and an increasing cost-of-living, further exacerbating tensions. The student protests have been met with significant violence by the government - local newspapers report that over a hundred protestors have been killed, and thousands have been injured. Guns and tear gas have been used. Additionally, the government has completely cut internet access throughout Bangladesh to prevent organizing, which has had some success in dividing protestors, but has also only further angered various parts of the country due to the massive impact to Bangladesh's online industries and various startups. And a national curfew has been in place to limit movement, with the population told to remain home if they want to be safe. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh relented, stating that now, [only 5% of government jobs would be reserved for veterans and their families](https://archive.ph/e7W5q). 2% would be allocated to members of minorities, with the remaining 93% distributed on merit. A period of tentative calm has arrived, but Hasnat Abdullah, a coordinator of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, has stated that unless the government restores the internet, removes the curfew, releases detainees, and forces certain ministers to resign within a few days, then the protests will resume. --- 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 **Bangladesh**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [More detail here.]() [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/2993544) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of Joseph Robinette Biden, who has stepped down and will not run against Trump in the 2024 election. --- In the aftermath of Trump surviving an assassination attempt, many professional opinion-havers are now talking about the scourge of "political violence" that has overtaken, or will soon overtake America, and how we must not let chaos rule. This is, of course, patently absurd. The American government and its allies have been the greatest force of political violence on the planet since the beginning of colonialism, and the foundations of the country are made of corpses. Today, America commits political violence by forcing Ukrainians into the maw of Russian artillery instead of trying to reach a peaceful settlement, which Russia has repeatedly expressed interest in and offered Ukraine relatively favourable terms. They supply Israel with endless weaponry to destroy entire cities and populations, while Biden supporters insist that somehow things could be worse than daily massacres and mass starvation. In May 1945, French police fired on protestors, causing retaliatory attacks on French settlers, killing about a hundred. In response, the French murdered 45,000 Algerians in a little under two months, in a frenzy of political violence called the Sétif and Guelma massacre. As the massacre was being completed, the International Court of Justice was established. It goes without saying that Algeria never benefited from the ICJ, and the War of Independence from 1954 to 1962 was made inevitable. Over a million Algerians were killed before France could bear the fighting no longer and gave up, and Algeria won itself a state. Comparisons to the ongoing war of independence and genocide in Palestine are obvious. While the means of colonial violence have evolved over the centuries, the basic structure of it has not. As in Algeria, Vietnam, and Cuba, resistance groups in and around Palestine are fighting for a world with less political violence. The American government would drown every city in the developing world in blood to prevent peace. --- 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 **Algeria**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [More detail here.]() [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/2939972?sort=New) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of the Big Wet Boy surviving an assassination attempt with his Matrix-esque bullet dodging skills.](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-14/shots-fired-at-trump-rally-in-pennsylvania/104095660) Trump's victory, and the further mass oppression of minorities, is closer than ever before. May god have mercy on our souls. --- ::: spoiler previous preamble The totalitarian capitalist dystopia which was created by the United States in the aftermath of the Korean War has increasingly experienced problems as the multipolar world is being gradually birthed. Due to the widespread exploitation of the population, long work weeks, and high housing prices, the population growth of South Korea has plummeted, with the lowest fertility rate on the planet, and the highest suicide rate in the OECD. While a capitalist "success story" before the 2008 recession in terms of profit accumulation for the richest at the expense of most others, conditions have grown more dire in the Long Depression since the crash. GDP growth per year has averaged out at 2-3%. For more concrete figures, labour productivity has stagnated, particularly in the service sector. The rate of profit hit a peak when the dictatorship ended in the late 1980s, but has since massively tumbled. These dynamics are not unique to South Korea; they are happening throughout the West. While South Korea is stagnating, perhaps even falling, its northern neighbour is rising. With Russia already persona non grata to much of the developed world and yet still maintaining fairly good economic growth and continuously albeit gradually moving towards victory in Ukraine, Putin sees no reason to be intimidated by the West's shunning of the DPRK, and Russia is establishing ties as well as military and economic deals. This seems to portend an end to the post-Soviet period of forced isolation due to UN actions forbidding the people of the DPRK to leave the country (which many westerners believe is a policy originating from the Korean leadership due to their propagandized education). Many in the West are still, regrettably, unable to properly analyze the geopolitical situation of Korea due to their government programming, leading to bizarre takes about imminent collapse, or desperation on the part of Russia or the DPRK, unable to recognize that the DPRK has a powerful military sector all its own, and decades of autarky has created a durable society where limited resources must be used efficiently and effectively. The position of the Korean Peninsula seems likely to be a critical part of the US-China conflict, whether this is an outright war or instead a series of proxy wars. Indeed, Korea's position may soon become very important in global trade routes if the US tries to cut off the Strait of Malacca to Chinese-bound cargo ships, with vital resources like oil and food potentially transported both over land and via the Arctic Route over Russia and through the DPRK to China. Russia's leadership clearly sees the importance of Korea in the future, hence their actions now; and, of course, South Korea siding with Ukraine has also forced Putin's hand to oppose them more openly. ::: --- 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 **South Korea**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [More detail here.](https://hexbear.net/comment/5097496) [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/2890555?sort=New) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of Bolivian President Luis Arce (center, with glasses) face-to-face with General Zuñiga (in camouflage) during the coup attempt. --- On the 26th of June, while Hexbear was in an 8-hour hibernation, General Juan José Zuñiga marched 200 troops and some armored vehicles on the government palace in an attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government of Luis Arce. This is somewhat reminiscent of Jeanine Anez's coup in November 2019 where she overthrew the socialist president Evo Morales, but while that coup was due to a colour revolution likely orchestrated by the United States and had at least a tiny amount of political/public legitimacy and "followed the rules" in a certain sense (as Morales was trying to abolish presidential term limits, which is only evil if a socialist is doing it), this was a much more naked attempted seizure of power by a military general. This coup was quickly terminated without even a momentary transfer of power. Democracy was saved. Despite being in the same party, Morales and Arce have increasingly been in opposition. Morales champions anti-imperialism, rights for indigneous people, and poverty reduction. This last one especially has been threatened by Arce, though it's not *entirely* his fault, as the Bolivian economy is threatened by the same crisis affecting so many developing economies around the world right now - say it with me now - a lack of dollars and mounting debt. The US Federal Reserve is carrying out a bloody offensive against the world's poor, and this has combined nastily with a rather uninspiring "post"-coronavirus economic recovery in Bolivia, as well as diminishing natural gas production (and thus less exports with which to earn dollars). While the coup was ongoing, Morales banded behind the government. Afterwards, however, Morales expressed his skepticism about whether the coup was, in fact, genuine, calling for an independent investigation into it, and saying that Arce [“disrespected the truth, deceived us, lied, not only to the Bolivian people but to the whole world."](https://archive.ph/KEeZZ) This is because General Zuñiga made a series of very interesting statements to his family and colleagues, saying that Arce had "betrayed" him, and saying that Arce had told him “‘The situation is very screwed up, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to raise my popularity.'" This does check out on the surface level, at least: Arce has suffered increasing unpopularity as the economy has suffered. Interestingly, Morales' narrative has been supported by the anarchocapitalist leader of Argentina, Javier Milei, who is currently busy completely destroying his own country and stripping the copper out of the walls to give to American capitalists. Milei said that the coup attempt was "fraudulent". Meanwhile, those inside MAS opposed to Morales' accusations of a false coup have accused him of allying with the fascist right and becoming an instrument of imperialism. --- 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 **Bolivia**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [More detail here.](https://hexbear.net/comment/5070938) [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/2833694) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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 of fires in northern Israel set off by Hezbollah, to force settlers to retreat from their occupied areas, in response to attacks on civilians in Lebanon.](https://archive.ph/9zvpO) --- I'm not gonna lie to you - I thought Israel would have started shit with Hezbollah by now which would have derailed whatever megathread theme I had planned, so I didn't bother planning one. If you want a decent couple pieces going over what Hezbollah has done to Israel, then have a look at [How 'Israel' Has Lost The North](https://indi.ca/israel-has-lost-the-north/) and [Hezbollah's Quarterly Report](https://indi.ca/hezbollahs-quarterly-report/). It's not exactly the most professional analysis, as you'll see if you read it, but it gets the point across and relies on evidence. In essence, Hezbollah has pushed the Israelis back tens of kilometers and decimated their border infrastructure, all while unveiling anti-aircraft missiles that have forced Israel to reconsider bombing runs. They still probably have the ability to turn various towns and cities in Lebanon to rubble, but Hezbollah can do massive damage back to Israel in turn. This has gone on so long with so little meaningful opposition by Israel that border settlements are going a little haywire and tentatively declaring independence from Israel and saying they don't want IDF troops there anymore. I don't take these terribly seriously from a military standpoint but it is indicative of the Zionist settler mindset crumbling over the last 9 months. We're now at the point where Israel kinda *has* to go to war against Hezbollah or the entire Zionist ideology of military deterrence and expansion via illegal settlements simply no longer functions, but that war will also lead to massive destruction for military and civilian facilities (ports, power stations, war factories, etc) which is a massive problem for Israel's continued existence. Hamas continues to function inside Gaza despite the surface occupation of significant areas, including the Gaza-Egypt border, and attrition there is leading to big materiel and psychological losses for Israel too. And Yemen has, for all intents and purposes, prevailed against America's failed attempt to thwart their blockade - with some in the army claiming it's the most intense naval battle America has faced since WW2 - and missile strikes are tentatively beginning to hit or at least threaten ships in the Mediterranean Sea. Nukes are still lurking quietly in the background, of course, but the Resistance is perfectly aware of that and still seems confident to go ahead with operations, so I can't really do anything but shrug and say that I trust them to do what's right. --- 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 **Lebanon**! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. [More detail here.](https://hexbear.net/comment/5044499) [Please check out the HexAtlas!](https://hexbear.net/post/2124249) [The bulletins site is here!](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/) [The RSS feed is here.](https://bulletins.hexbear.net/index.xml) [Last week's thread is here.](https://hexbear.net/post/2736275?scrollToComments=false) ::: spoiler Israel-Palestine Conflict [If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4090067) 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.](https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports) [English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account.](https://twitter.com/Marxozoic) Alt [here.](https://twitter.com/LeninOfNazareth) [English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).](https://twitter.com/ME_Observer_) [Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.](https://twitter.com/ib_reb) [English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon.](https://twitter.com/IbnRiad) - Telegram is @IbnRiad. [English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis.](https://twitter.com/EyesOnSouth1) - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth. [English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two.](https://twitter.com/AryJeay) - [Telegram here.](https://t.me/FotrosResistance) [English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.](https://t.me/s/PalestineResist) [More telegram channels here for those interested.](https://hexbear.net/comment/4142039) Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar. ::: ::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict [Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists](https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1662026001627.webm) [Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict](https://www.hexbear.net/post/177244) **Sources:** Defense Politics Asia's [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia/videos) and their [map](defensepoliticsasia.com/Ukraine/). Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. [Moon of Alabama](https://www.moonofalabama.org/), which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. [Understanding War](https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates) and the [Saker](http://thesaker.is/): reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. [Alexander Mercouris](https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexanderMercourisReal/videos), 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](https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos), an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side. Unedited [videos](https://invidious.snopyta.org/channel/UCo-P9gyWGjOkdquRBt0zowQ/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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