Image is of the Power of Siberia natural gas pipeline, which transports gas from Russia to China. This isn’t an oil pipeline (such as the ESPO) but I thought it looked cool. Source here.
Trump has recently proposed a 500% tariff on goods from countries that trade with Russia, including India and China (who buy ~70% of Russia’s oil output), as well as a 10% additional tariff on goods from countries that “align themselves with BRICS.” Considering that China is the largest trading partner of most of the countries on the planet at this point, and India and Brazil are reasonably strong regional players, I’m not sure what exactly “alignment” means, but it could be pretty bad.
Sanctions and tariffs on Russian products have been difficult to achieve in practice. It’s easy to write an order to sanction Russia, but much harder to actually enforce these sorts of things because of, for example, the Russian shadow oil fleet, or countries like Kazakhstan acting as covert middlemen (well, as covert as a very sudden oil export boom can be).
Considering that China was pretty soundly victorious last time around, I’m cautiously optimistic, especially because China and India just outright cutting off their supply of energy and fuel would be catastrophic to them (and if Iran and Israel go to war again any time in the near future, it’ll only be more disastrous). Barring China and India kowtowing to Trump and copying Europe vis-a-vis Nordstream 2 (which isn’t impossible, I suppose), the question is whether China and India will appear to accede to these commands while secretly continuing trade with Russia through middlemen, or if they will be more defiant in the face of American pressure.
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.
“Death to idf” is honestly the centrist position at this point.
Of course that Iraqi Kurdistan goes straight into civil war mode the moment I start looking for plane tickets. I’m still seething over my canceled trip to Iraq because of that fucker Netanyahu btw. In slightly related news, my son turned 1 yesterday, and he celebrated that by somehow pushing over a drawer and destroying it in the process. Fucking Mossad agent.
In other unrelated news, I should probably address the current instability in Lebanon here, as the government is openly colluding with Israel in an attempt to disarm Hezbollah. At the same time, I’m genuinely tired hexbears, the barrage of bad news just isn’t stopping these days. This is probably counter-revolutionary or defeatist or whatever, but I still haven’t recovered from the martyrdom of Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah. I have struggled to engage with any Hezbollah news or content in the past few months, I just can’t get over that he isn’t with us anymore. The death of my own grandparents didn’t affect me even 10% of Nasrallah’s martyrdom. I desperately want to go to Beirut soon, but it’s still risky security-wise and I’m just dreading the thought of actually seeing his grave, I just can’t do it.
Iran receives Chinese surface-to-air missile batteries after Israel ceasefire deal
The Islamic Republic is trading oil for Chinese air defence missiles as it looks to rebuild capabilities destroyed by Israel, sources say
So, apparently during the 2024 campaign, Kamala Harris did an interview with the liberal podcast @SubwayTakes that was SO bad that they decided not to even release it because the host didn’t want to get blamed for her losing…
You must be something really special to write an article like this on the same week when the UK welcomed Al Qaeda’s leader as the new president of Syria and Trump also removed all sanctions.
As an outside observer, it sorta feels like after the useless “no more kings” protests that achieved absolutely nothing, and months of similar movements, combined with sporadic and more effective violent resistance being seen in some areas, that a large mass of people are getting very radicalised and seeing things clearly around what’s going to need to happen to stop ICE. Every thread about it on /r/news seems to be dominated by liberals openly stating that violent resistance is necessary and good, and there’s far less of the “you’re giving them an excuse to crack down!!!” type shit flying around. This wasn’t the case even a couple of months ago. The Democratic base is getting to the point where their calls for blood are making it into national news, to the horror of their leadership. Is this an accurate assessment?
“Alligator Alcatraz” Prisoners Say Their Living Conditions Are a Form of Torture
(Article)
They report inadequate and maggot-infested food, inability to bathe, flooding, denial of religious practice, and more.
spoiler
Officially known as Krome Detention Center, the 5,000-bed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration detention facility located on the grounds of a rarely used municipal airport approximately 20 miles west of Miami last week began receiving people arrested during the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. While U.S. President Donald Trump and other proponents of the prison have sadistically joked about alligators eating escaping prisoners, the biggest dangers faced by detainees are found inside the facility’s walls.
“I don’t know their motive for doing this, if it’s a form of torture,” he added. “A lot of us have our residency documents and we don’t understand why we’re here.”
Another inmate, the Cuban reggaeton artist Leamsy La Figura, said guards “only brought a meal once a day and it had maggots.”
“They’re not respecting our human rights,” one detainee told CBS News Miami during a phone interview. “We’re human beings; we’re not dogs. We’re like rats in an experiment.”
“They never take off the lights for 24 hours,” he claimed. “The mosquitoes are as big as elephants,” and “there’s no water to take a bath, it’s been four days since I’ve taken a bath.”
A Colombian detainee said his mental health is breaking down. “I’m on the edge of losing my mind. I’ve gone three days without taking my medicine,” he said. “It’s impossible to sleep with this white light that’s on all day.”
“They took the Bible I had and they said here there is no right to religion,”
Weird how making these LLMs ‘anti-woke’ results in it Hitlerposting.
wonder whyLula’s worker’s party in Brazil has both won the lottery and built a great strayegy with the prize.
After Trump announced sanctions on Brazil, the major media outlets of the country, usually very right wing and all obviously ran by land owners, are either echoing the government’s communication on the matter, or have Lula on for great interviews about it.
What probably happened is that the sanctions would affect the earnings of one of the classes that run the country: land owners/large farmers. On one hand, they have Lula’s party and allies, who have been mostly anti-us imperialism, and Bolsonaro and allies, whose whole thing was promising to give every last bit of our land to Americans. Well, who could possibly be their best bet in this situation? Now the fucking worker’s party is seizing the nationalism discussion away from the fascists and wrapping it around some form of anti-imperialism.
The most interesting thing is the situation that is being drawn: it is now in the best interest of the country’s capitalists and landowners that they support the anti-imperialist front, and the leftists are actually taking advantage of this to get stronger. Does this seem absolutely insane to anybody else? It might be the weed I may have just now, but this realization blew my mind
Various Iranian lawmakers are warning President Pezeshkian, stating that if he does not change the weak behaviour of the government, the Parliament may move towards impeaching him.
Amirhossein Sabeti, to President Pezeshkian’s interview with Tucker Carlson: ‘Your weak responses to the American reporter were against national unity and shameful. Apparently, you have not yet learned from your previous unwise and dishonorable negotiations with America and would like to be deceived once again. If the government’s foreign policy does not change, the parliament’s approach to the government will change.’ (Impeachment)
- Telegram
Pam Bondi says missing minute from Epstein security camera footage was routine procedure
- RESISTANCE NEWS NETWORK-
Zionist sources report that the number of soldiers killed in the resistance strikes in northern #Gaza tonight has risen to six. This comes after the mangled body of a soldier, previously thought missing, was recovered.
According to early reports, resistance fighters initially targeted a vehicle or convoy of vehicles with a minefield. A rescue force was then targeted with explosives upon its arrival. A second rescue force, hoping to rescue the first, was also targeted. A third IOF rescue force was targeted with explosives, and the initial ambush site was targeted with small arms and shoulder-fired rockets repeatedly in order to confirm kills.
Intense mortar fire from the resistance was also reported near the scene, leading to the delay of further rescue operations and reportedly leading to a number of soldiers burning to death within their vehicle which was targeted.
While zionist media has so far only acknowledged six killed and 11 wounded soldiers, the number is likely much higher. Five zionist-run hospitals - Asota, Soroka, Beilinson, Tel Hashomer, and Ein Kerem all prepared to receive casualties from the security incident. Typically, 17 casualties (as currently claimed by zionists) from the Gaza Strip would be distributed among two hospitals.
Multiple sources called this ambush among the deadliest security incidents since the start of the zionist aggression on Gaza. Netanyahu‘s meeting with US envoy Steve Witkoff was interrupted so that he could be briefed on the incident.
After the U.S.-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation accused Hamas of attacking two American employees at its distribution center, eyewitnesses and local journalists say the GHF fired grenades on the crowd first before aid-seekers threw them back at them.
Further supporting the witness accounts:
Although the sites where GHF distributes aid are monitored by cameras from all angles, it did not publish any video or photo evidence to support its claim that Hamas members threw hand grenades at its staff, a local journalist told Mondoweiss. Had the story been true, the journalist said, such footage would have been widely broadcast.
Want to share an article I read in the Financial Times over the weekend. Really lays bare the reality of the global situation, where even the most ghoulish financial columnists can no longer deny the shifting global power dynamics to China. The whole article is worth reading, but I’ll share some choice quotes here.
In the aftermath during the 2010s, the world tilted irrevocably towards the east. Today, it is hard to avoid the impression that it is tilting further China’s way. The contrast between the turmoil in Donald Trump’s America and the mood of calm progress exuded by Beijing is striking both in style and substance.
And take a look at how they admit that even the “massive real estate meltdown” a few years ago that most Western commentators said would cause “China’s collapse” has been handled with relative grace.
As for China, it undoubtedly faces substantial macroeconomic challenges. Growth has slowed and youth unemployment is in double digits. In 2020-21 Beijing deliberately stopped the most dramatic process of urbanisation and private property accumulation in history, redlining further credit to its most inflated private developers. Unsurprisingly the ensuing real estate slump has produced a lasting hangover. But the remarkable thing is that, unlike in Europe and the US in 2008, this has not morphed into a systemic crisis. If China’s annual growth rate stabilises at around 5 per cent, it will have to be counted as the most successful soft landing in the history of economic policy. If further stimulus is required, one would expect the policy process in Beijing to be laboured, but to result in an intelligible outcome.
Also some fun riffing on AI:
The White House favours gutting any effective regulation of artificial intelligence, even as more and more experiments confirm that existing large language models are not safely aligned with acceptable political and social norms. China’s platform giants are ploughing huge resources into AI too. The results are no more predictable. But if there is any prospect that AI development poses a threat to the social and political order Beijing deems acceptable, can anyone be in doubt that it would be halted in its tracks? That is what the humbling of the platform oligarchs in 2020 betokened. What analogous guarantee is there in the west? The contrast is stark. On the Chinese side technocratic, top-down managerialism to please any centrist pining for the 1990s. In the US, policy as post-truth reality TV.
Overall a good look at how some of the ghoulish businessmen understand view the world at this moment in time; certainly not encouraging for the United States.
