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.
Two ballistic missiles launched from Yemen towards Israel over the past 24 hours. A Rezvan/Zulfiqar ballistic missile last night, intercepted by Arrow 3, with debris seen flying over Israel. The second missile was a Fattah-1 during the day, with parts of it intercepted by the David's Sling system. A piece of the booster stage was found in Israel. Booster stages still have the inertia from the initial launch, so they can travel in space and often land somewhere near the target.
Fattah-1 booster stage:
David's Sling interceptor:
Zulfiqar/Rezvan debris on video:
Statements from the Yemeni Armed Forces:
Update to the naming conventions:
When did David's sling get the ability to intercept hypersonics?
David's Sling was designed to intercept the latest generation of highly maneuverable tactical ballistic missiles in the terminal phase. Missiles such as ATACMS, Iskander-M, Fateh-110 and 313, Raad-500, etc. The Stunner missile fired by the David's Sling system uses a kinetic hit to kill interception, travels at speeds of Mach 7.5+ with a three pulse rocket motor, and has a multimode asymmetrical seeker (active radar + two different infrared homing systems), nicknamed a dolphin seeker because if it's shape. This makes it highly capable at terminal phase intercepts of these shorter range missile. Ultimately David's Sling low maximum altitude of 15km makes it sub-optimal for intercepting longer range ballistic missiles. However a target is a target, and with MaRV (Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicle) equipped longer range ballistic missiles potentially gliding under the engagement floor/minimum altitude of longer range terminal engagement systems like THAAD and potentially Arrow-2, they very well could end up in the engagement envelope of David's Sling. To glide under the engagement envelope of Arrow-2, the MaRV would have to perform a fairly long glide below an altitude of 8km, which would put it firmly within the engagement envelope of David's Sling. It's unlikely that it would be flying at hypersonic speeds at this point, aerodynamic drag from re-entry, pull-up maneuver(s) and gliding at low altitude will have an effect on speed, even on MaRVs with a sustainer rocket motor as part of them like Fattah-1 or Palestine-2. David's Sling already did provide some last minute intercepts of MaRV capable ballistic missiles during Iran's ballistic missile attack on Israel, Operation True Promise II, in October last year. David's Sling could also be being used to intercept debris, like a booster stage for instance, or parts of a previously intercepted warhead.
Thank you for your response. I always appreciate your in-depth knowledge on missile systems.