Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran's leadership must - if they haven't already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
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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.
Let me explain this better:
Latin American Nuclear Powers
Mexico: Mexico has had their own nuclear capabilities since the 70's, but they have signed an agreement to never develop nuclear weapons, and they also promoted anti-nuclear stuff. I guess the PRI didn't mind nuclear weapons, as long as they never did anything against the US, and even if the US ever invaded them, they could just attack the US mainland with non-nuclear weapons.Brazil: Brazil started (there was an attempt during the 1950s under the second Vargas government, but never got started because the CIA mess with it) to develop its nuclear program during the 1970s under the extreme right-wing military dictatorship. They worked with West Germany and China to develop the nuclear power plants, which became known as Angra I (started up near the end of the military regime) and Angra II (started up in 2000). In the late 1970s and 1980s, Brazil and Argentina had a nuclear rivalry, as both sought to have their own nuclear weapons. The United States then became angry and began to force Brazil and Argentina to give up their nuclear weapons program. In the 1990s, the neoliberal Collor government signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and destroyed most of the prototype nuclear weapons Brazil had created. Under Lula and every other government since, Brazil has had the capability to have nuclear weapons, but never actually attempted to build one. Brazil keeps its nuclear energy and enrichment programs secret from the rest of the world. Lula das Silva refused to allow U.S. inspectors to see how uranium enrichment worked in Brazil. More recently Brazil was building a nuclear submarine with help from France, but then the 2016 coup happened and the CIA pressured the Brazilian goverment to arrest the main guy behind the nuclear sub prgram. Under Lula's new goverment they resumed the nuclear sub program with help from Macron's goverment.
Argentina: Argentina had signed most of the anti-nuclear agreements during the 1960s, but during the military junta of the 1970s it started to develop nuclear weapons with the help of Egypt and Iraq. It's pretty much the same as Brazil, except that the US got very aggressive after the Faklands War and started pressuring Raul Alfonsin (the guy who took power after the fall of the dictatorship) to disband it. As far as I know, it was quietly destroyed during the 1990s under the neoliberal governments.
Latin American Countries that Attempted to be a Nuclear Power
Chile: Under Pinochet there were talks about developing an nuclear program or nuclear weapons, but that never went anywhere besides just talk. Chile during the 1990s joined Brazil and Argentina and agreed to never have nuclear weapons.Venezuela: Under the Right-Wing Dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1950s - 1960s), Venezuela developed a nuclear power plant but it broke down and had to be shut down. Russia and Chavez were building a new one in the 2000s but after the Fukushima accident, Chavez ordered it to be shut down.
Cuba: Cuba gained nuclear weapons from USSR, but those were removed. Cuba did try to build their own nuclear power plant during the 1980s, but the fall of USSR halted it. In the middle 1990s Germany, France, Italy and Russia wanted to continue it, but then the US got really pissed and refused to allow that to happen because Bill Clinton thought he could destroy the goverment of Cuba. Cuba basically gave up on nuclear energy by the 2000s and focused on solar energy instead.
Uruguay: They bought a reactor from the USA during the 1960s, they used it for educational stuff and generated a bit of power until it broke down in the 1970s and after that they banned nuclear energy due to the Goiana Incident in Brazil.