Image is from this SCMP article.
Much of the analysis below is sourced from Michael Roberts' great website.
Japan's ruling parliamentary coalition, consisting of the LDP (purple) and it's junior coalition partner Komeito (in light pink) have lost their ruling majority. They have ruled post-war Japan for almost its entire history. The LDP is currently led by Shigeru Ishiba after Kishida stood down due to a corruption scandal, and ties to the Unification Church.
While geopolitical factors (over the cold war between the US and China, etc) may have played a role, by far the biggest reason for this result in the poor economic conditions over the past few years. Inflation has risen and real wages have fallen, with little relief for the working class via things like tax reductions. While inequality in Japan is not as extreme as in America, it is still profound, with the top 10% possessing 60% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% possess just 5%.
Shinzo Abe previously tried to boost economic performance through monetary easing and fiscal deficits, while Kishida ran on a "new capitalism" which rejected Abe's neoliberalism and promised to reduce inequality. Nothing substantial has resulted from all this, however, other than increasing corporate wealth. Innovation continues to fall, and domestic profitability is low, resulting in decreasing investment at home by Japanese corporations. Labour productivity growth has only slightly picked up since the mid-2000s and is falling again. The rate of profit has fallen by half since the 1960s, and Japan has been in a manufacturing recession - or very close to it - since late 2022. In essence: there is no choice but between stagnation or decline.
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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.
She claims China is a "country I love" in that britishcouncil article you link though.
Yet all she does is advocate against China, posting the exact shit that nato liberals would post. It's unlike anything from genuine China lovers I've ever seen.
She claims to be a feminist, I think she's a terf because there's a huge absence of trans or lgbt issues anywhere in her feminism.
Another notable aspect of her presentation as "feminist" is that the China she's advocating for by opposing the CPC is foot-binding-and-Tibetan-slavery-China. Very feminist?
I'm more inclined to say this is branding. Feminism as a core pillar of her claim to being leftwing and "I worked for the CCP who are ebil totalitarians" appeal-to-authority to convince people she should be listened to on the topic over others. Whereas the reality is she's neither a feminist because she appears to me to be exclusionary of queer feminism which is sus af and the end of her work in China happens to coincide exactly with China cracking down on foreign agents.
Yes, I've noticed that she doesn't really discuss Chinese culture, food, architecture, or treats at all, which is what the vast majority of genuine "love China" people do. You don't have to love the PRC or the CPC to appreciate some pagoda build during the Ming dynasty or some cool-looking drone delivering boxes to people.
Hmm, the timing is pretty sus. There are a few tweets mentioning that she's a mom with a 4 year old kid. So, the timeline would be she had her kid in China before leaving China (she had her kid 4 years ago and the kid turned 1 before they left China 3 years ago), which is kinda weird if she had plans of moving back to the UK since she isn't exactly in a rush to have a kid because she would've been in her late 20s/early 30s. But if she didn't initially had plans to move back to the UK, then it makes more sense. She had her kid in China because she wanted to settle down in China for various personal and "professional" reasons but was forced out of China, so she had to change plans and take her 1 year old toddler back to the UK.
From her tweets, she lives with her partner. I don't think there's any real way to find out who her partner is, but I'm curious about their identity. Are they a Chinese national? Are they also British? And what is their occupation? I don't think she could financially support herself and her 4 year old kid with a not-particularly-big Tiktok on top of trying to get a PhD, so it's either their income is mostly handled by her partner or she's an agent lol
Here's another thing I thought of. From one of the articles, she graduated from the University of Exeter and got her masters and is currently pursuing her doctorate in the University of Tübingen in Germany. So, unless she's doing remote learning, she's not actually in the UK but in Germany. That's very strange to spend around a decade in China only to move to Germany out of all places instead of returning home to the UK.
I don't know anything about the University of Exeter or the University of Tübingen. Surely she had a reason to pick those universities especially the one in Germany where she got her masters and is pursing her PhD. If those two universities are notorious for being where British and German intelligence graduate from, then it would be a strong argument that she herself is an agent as well.