Or perhaps the end of the beginning, if you’re a little more pessimistic.
Image is from this Bloomberg article, from which I also gathered some of the information used in the preamble.
While Trump was off in the Middle East in an incompetent attempt to solve a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis, China has been doing something much more productive.
Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, had a summit with CELAC (a community of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries). There, he promised investment, various declarations of friendship, and visa-free entry for 30 days for citizens of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. Lula signed over 30 agreements with China. Colombia is joining the New Development Bank and hopes to gain the money for a 120-kilometer railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as an alternative route to the Panama Canal. Even Argentina, ruled by arch-libertarian and arch-dipshit (but I repeat myself) Milei, was uncharacteristically polite with China as he secured a currency swap renewal to shore up their international reserves.
It wouldn’t really be correct to say that Latin America is “siding with China over the US” - leaders in the region will continue to make many deals with America for the foreseeable future, and even Trump’s bizarre economic strongman routine won’t make them break off economic and diplomatic relations. What’s significant here is that despite increasing American pressure for those leaders to break off all ties with China, few appear to be listening - and given that China is perhaps the most important economy on the planet right now, that is a very predictable outcome.
As the current American empire takes actions to try and avoid their doom, those very actions only guarantee it. As Latin America grows ever more interconnected with China and continues to develop, America will grow ever more panicked and demanding, and this feedback loop will - eventually - result in the death of the Monroe Doctrine.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, 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, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Interesting interview with a Russian drone developer
Guy’s got a particular perspective (small Russian military drone manufacturer who wants to be better integrated into the Russian MIC) but very interesting overall. He talks about tactics such as using a fiber optic drone to hit the jamming source of an incursion, be it a backpack kit or vehicle with the EW hardware, then using cheaper radio drones to begin picking apart the rest of the force. He also talks about downsides of fiber optics - in particular light you can see the cables and track them to their source from a recon drone. You can also put a laser into a terminated optical drone’s cable and use that to track it back to the source on the ground. Lots of interesting stuff.
CNTE protests in Mexico City: What are the teachers asking for, what have they been given, and how are the negotiations going? Hexbear Post
Tensions between teachers from the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) and the government have reached a critical point. After a week of protests, including the blockade of Mexico City’s main thoroughfares and the closure of access to the National Palace prior to President Claudia Sheinbaum’s morning press conference, the teachers’ union remains steadfast in demanding the repeal of the 2007 ISSSTE Law. Meanwhile, authorities have limited themselves to describing this reform implemented by Felipe Calderón as an “injustice.” However, they maintain that there is insufficient funding to completely reverse it or implement a new pension system under the conditions demanded by the CNTE.
Venezuela’s 2025 Legislative and Regional Elections: A Quick Guide - Venezuelanalysis Hexbear Post
Venezuelans return to the polls on Sunday, May 25, to elect a new National Assembly, governors for 24 states, and regional legislative councils. This is the 32nd electoral event under the Bolivarian Revolution.
With their respective terms ending on January 5, 2026, the Venezuelan Constitution determines that a new National Assembly (AN) and regional authorities must be chosen this year. The unusually early date leaves room for other elections later in the year, including municipal contests and a potential constitutional reform.
In addition, the electorate will also pick governors for the 24 states and 260 members of regional legislative councils. Regional officials serve four-year terms.
According to the PFLP, the enemy camp is a triad: The Israeli Entity (Zionist movement), global imperialism, and Arab reactionaries. This, the Front argued, was a precise diagnosis of the conflict. Consequently, it maintained that targeting the enemy should not be restricted by geography, since the enemy itself had made the entire world a battlefield.
Behind the Enemy Everywhere: Return of Palestinian External Ops? by Moussa al-Sadah
Moon of Alabama is having some hot take today in light of the Denmark raising retirement age: Chinese Work Less For Longer Retirements
China’s new retirement age for males born in 1970/12 is 61.5, and females is 55.25. With life expectancy 81.5 🇩🇰 vs 79 🇨🇳 and China’s much longer working hours (2450 hrs vs 🇩🇰 1563), Chinese work 4600 hours for 1 year of retirement, while Danes need to work for 6500 hours.
This calculation assumed Chinese start working at 20 years old and Danes start at 22 years old to account for higher education level in Denmark. Average retirement age 58.4 is assumed in China, just an average of male/female retirement ages.
So 🇨🇳 worked for 38.4 * 2450=94000 hrs in exchange of 20.6 yrs; 🇩🇰 worked for 48 * 1563=75000 hrs, retire for 11.5 yrs.
Obviously, the austerity policy in Europe is bad and the raising of retirement age is inevitable with the impending economic difficulties under neoliberalism, but the comparison with China (of all countries!) is quite another level of galaxy brain.
Average annual work hours by country:
(Top entry is Chinese internet companies that implement 996 work hours)If you are between 20-40 years old, would you rather:
- Work an average of 48 hours per week (much higher if you work in some 996 companies) with 0.5-1 day weekend, 5 days of paid annual leave (10 if you have worked for 10 years, 15 if you have worked for 20 years), no free healthcare, no social safety nets, but you get to retire at 60 (going up to 63, for men) or 55 (going up to 58, for women). Also take into account that once retired, a large portion of your 五险一金 (five insurances and one fund) payout is going to be spent on your aging health expenses since there is no free healthcare.
or
- Work an average of 35 hours per week with at least 2-day weekend, 25 days (5 weeks) of paid annual leave, free universal healthcare and supported by strong social safety nets, but now you have to work until you are 70.
Which one will you choose?
Question is Diego Garcia now part of Mauritius and just the base still under uk jurisdiction or is diego garcia still part of the uk and was just the rest of the island group returned to Mauritius?
Former portuguese and current president of the EU council went to the Ivory Coast to receive the UNESCO Peace Prize for…doing nothing I guess? He got 150k with it, 132k of which he donated to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is nice.
He also had this photo taken while he was there. Pretty weird to be in portugal rn where the political situation is so fucked (partly because of him) and to see Costa go around doing sidequests and unlocking new outfits
Kazakh university student in Russia arrested and charged with terrorism for belonging to a Marxist discussion group.
uae be like: check is in the mail
genocide don: i serve the golden calf
US bipartisanship: On May 19, Trump’s State Department offered a $10M reward for info on Hezbollah near the triple border. Then Marco Rubio pushed for Itaipu dam power to fuel US AI. Next day, NYT ran a bizarre ‘Russian spies in Brazil’ story, debunked by the Justice Minister. This comes on the heels of Bill S. 842: No Hezbollah In Our Hemisphere Act, submitted by Senators John Curtis ® and Jacky Rosen (D) on March 4. If it passes, Trump will have the power to declare countries like Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela as “terrorist sanctuaries.”.
After New York Times publishes an article claiming Brazil’s Federal Police have uncovered a Russian spy network, Justice Minister Ricardo Lewondowski debunks the story. "There is no concrete evidence that there is a large scale spy network here, from Russia or anywhere else.
“Our authorities in the military, the police and the national intelligence agency (ABIN) monitor this. Everything is operating normally.” At a press conference at Interpol’s 4th meeting with South American police chiefs, he said there is one, isolated case, which is currently being analyzed by the Supreme Court. “The Brazilian government will act in accordance with the Court’s ruling in this case,” he said. “Unless there is evidence of criminal activity, this is not a matter for the Federal Police to intervene in.”
The NYT is the voice of the Democratic Party. Democrats always work together with the Republicans in Latin American politics.
0 fact checking on gossip spread by Eduardo Bolsonaro on visit by US delegation fools Brazilian public into thinking David Gamble had arrived to sanction Brazilian officials
Article
On May 3, a rumor spread by Eduardo Bolsonaro—son of former President Jair Bolsonaro and the family’s primary liaison to the international far-right—was treated as news by Brazilian, U.S., and British-affiliated outlets in Brazil. These outlets amplified an unfounded claim that Trump administration officials were arriving in Brazil to sanction Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes for allegedly violating U.S. free speech principles.
In a May 3 article in CNN Brasil, titled “Trump Administration Representative is Coming to Brazil to Discuss Sanctions Against Moraes” (translated from Portuguese), journalist Leandro Magalhães asserted that David Gamble, the Trump administration’s Acting Coordinator for Sanctions, would fly to Brasília on May 5 to “listen to right-wing parliamentarians and former President Jair Bolsonaro.”
CNN further speculated that the meetings would address “not only Justice Moraes’ actions but also those of other Brazilian authorities, such as Attorney General Paulo Gonet.”
The story first appeared in Metrópoles, a formerly progressive outlet now accused of ideological entryism, before spreading to mainstream platforms like Veja—Brazil’s most widely read news magazine. Veja has a 40-year history of smear campaigns against the Workers’ Party and was once branded “a toxic rag with an agenda that goes far beyond journalism” by New Yorker veteran Jon Lee Anderson.
Veja quoted Eduardo Bolsonaro—the ex-congressman who fled to the U.S. last month—who said, “when I say Alexandre de Moraes’ potato is heating up here in the U.S., you can be sure it’s really happening.”
While Eduardo’s potato metaphor might seem inappropriate, it fits his family’s years-long hybrid warfare against Brazil’s judiciary, including their false narrative of a “dictatorship of the toga”—a framing normalized by outlets like the New York Times. Yet no major outlet bothered to seek State Department confirmation before publishing.
The U.S. Embassy in Brasília debunked the rumors in a May 4 press release, stating:
“The U.S. Department of State will send a delegation to Brasília, led by David Gamble, Acting Head of the Sanctions Coordination Office. He will participate in bilateral meetings on transnational criminal organizations and discuss U.S. sanctions programs targeting terrorism and drug trafficking.”
Notably absent: Any mention of Moraes or Gonet.
Veja buried this detail three paragraphs deep in its vaguely titled piece, “Who Is Trump’s Sanctions Advisor and What Is He Doing in Brazil?” Journalist Bruno Caniato conceded:
“The embassy’s release does not cite Justice Alexandre de Moraes… contrary to Eduardo Bolsonaro’s claims.”
Rather than clarify what was now confirmed as a false narrative, BBC Brasil doubled down with “Trump Sends Sanctions Director to Brazil: Could the Target Be Moraes?”—illustrated with a slant-shot, unflattering photo of the Supreme Court Justice who has become the primary Brazilian target of the international far right. The article insinuated “chilly relations” between Trump and Lula’s administration, only acknowledging the embassy’s actual agenda in the penultimate paragraph—and even then, casting doubt by claiming that BBC “could not confirm meetings with relevant agencies.”
As of May 8, Gamble has not met with anyone to discuss sanctions against Brazilian officials.
Perhaps scrambling to save face, CNN and others inflated a courtesy visit by Ricardo Pita—a 5th-echelon State Department official (Senior Advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs)—to Jair Bolsonaro. The ex-president later clarified the conversation was general, focused on U.S. interests in Latin America, with no mention of Moraes.
A May 7th Reuters article published in the Guardian made the purpose of Gamble’s delegation visit clear. It was to convince Brazilian authorities to designate Brazil’s two largest drug trafficking organizations, the PCC and the Comando Vermelho, as terrorist groups, to help facilitate the Trump administration’s deportation program for Brazilians. Unlike CNN Brasil, Veja and BBC Brasil, Reuters’ journalist took the time to speak to someone in the Brazilian government, quoting Security Minister Mario Sarrubo explaining why Brazil rejected Gamble’s request.
“‘We don’t have terrorist organizations here, we have criminal organizations that have infiltrated society,’ said Sarrubo. But Brazilian law, he added, only considers organizations that violently clash with the government for religious or racial reasons to be terrorists."
As shown by Reuters, it’s not that hard for a journalist to get a quote from a government official. Why would CNN, Veja, and BBC Brasil skip fact-checking to amplify a rumor spread by a known liar like Eduardo Bolsonaro? The most logical conclusion aside from pure laziness is editorial bias in favor of the Bolsonaros.
my beautiful social democracy
The EU is apparently gonna discuss hungarys voting rights on Tuesday https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/gac/2025/05/27/
So Russia and Ukraine planned a big Prisoner exchange 1000 for 1000
now the first 300 batch was exchangend and Ukraine did exhange a bunch of(ukrainian) Civilians instead of POW - they had imprisioned because of the Pro Russian Views, - As well as 50 just straight up Kidnapped Russian civilians from Kursk Oblast…
Capital firm to purchase The Daily Telegraph — Al Jazeera
article text
A consortium led by US investment firm RedBird Capital Partners has agreed to buy the publisher of the United Kingdom’s 170-year-old Daily Telegraph newspaper for about $674m (500 million pounds).
Redbird said it has reached an agreement in principle to become controlling owner of the Telegraph Media Group, ending a lengthy takeover saga for the conservative-leaning newspaper on Friday.
Gerry Cardinale, founder and managing partner of RedBird, said the sale “marks the start of a new era for The Telegraph as we look to grow the brand in the UK and internationally, invest in its technology and expand its subscriber base”.
The Telegraph group, previously owned by the UK’s Barclay family, was put up for sale two years ago to help pay off the family’s debts. It publishes the Daily and Sunday Telegraph newspapers and weekly newsmagazine The Spectator, which all are closely allied to the UK’s Conservative Party.
In 2023, there was an offer to buy the publications from RedBird IMI, a consortium backed by RedBird Capital Partners and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family and the vice president of the United Arab Emirates.
But the consortium pulled out last year following strong opposition from the UK government, which launched legislation to block foreign state ownership of the British press.
Under the deal, Abu Dhabi’s IMI will take a minority stake of not more than 15 percent in the Telegraph as a member of the consortium. The sale must be approved by British regulators.
RedBird has investments in football team AC Milan, the parent company of Liverpool football club and film production company Skydance.
Telegraph Media Group chief executive Anna Jones said that “RedBird Capital Partners have exciting growth plans that build on our success — and will unlock our full potential across the breadth of our business.”
The Spectator was sold in September to British hedge fund investor Paul Marshall
This will most likely result in the Telegraph being decimated and Red Bird tearing the copper out of the walls.
lol
