Image (source here) is of a section of the Yarlung Zangbo river, which forms the deepest canyon on the planet.
The idea of doing any sort of general preamble for China is a little absurd given how ubiquitous they are in economics and politics, so I'm just going to hop right in to a recent news item of interest: China is working on the construction of an enormous new hydropower project in Tibet (@Metabola@hexbear.net had brought this up just before the last news mega ended).
This project (consisting of, I believe, five dams) will be overall three times larger than the Three Gorges Dam, will cost $167 billion, and will supply 70 GW (by itself more power than several significant countries generate). There are, of course, meaningful concerns regarding concerning environmental damage, but helping to avert catastrophic climate change seems worth it. The news coming out of the clean energy sector of China has getting only more encouraging over the last few years, even as the fully neoliberalized Europe and America descend into climate skepticism and refuse to adequately fund projects that could avert the worst of climate change.
Geopolitically, given recent India-China tensions (for example, sending Pakistan the equipment to shoot down Indian jets, as well as run-of-the-mill border tensions) one expects India to not receive the news very well, as the river upon which the dam is being constructed proceeds to flow into Arunachal Pradesh. But from what I understand of the Indian hydrological situation (which is, admittedly, not much), I don't think enough of the water in India comes from the river for China to hypothetically cause any kind of water shortages in India - the monsoons seem to supply plenty of freshwater all by themselves. Nonetheless, as with all Chinese news, wild fearmongering abounds.
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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.
So a pretty insane story from Egypt is currently unfolding. Two Egyptian young dudes stormed a State Security police station in the Al-Massara district of Helwan and detained officers for five hours. The aim of this operation is allegedly protesting against the Egyptian regime’s policies, specifically demanding the opening of the Rafah crossing to allow food and aid into Gaza. The Egyptian Interior Ministry denied of course the whole incident, but we have multiple angles, and a four minute voice message from one of the guys that was recorded on Thursday. In the voice message, he called the operation "Hadid 17" in reference to Aya 17 in Surat Al Hadid in the Quran, "Know that Allah gives life to the earth after its death! Indeed, We have made clear the Signs to you, if you but reflect [upon them].". He said that he wanted to give life to the dormant people of Egypt and inspire them to rise against the State. They also leaked tens of documents which shows the scale of arrests made by the Egyptian state, with tons of people being arrested for "Ikhwanism" or "Islamic proselytization", which is just insane. One guy was arrested as a 14 year old for "Extremism". The fate of those guys is still unknown, but I hope they're safe. It's pretty cool that this is happening on the same day that George Abdallah asked the people of Egypt to rise.
Goes to show how fake and externally imposed the "Arab Spring" was considering that we arent seeing the kinds of mobilization in the streets or the defection within the police and military like occurred 14 years ago. Instead of US-israel fomenting discontent, financing "opposition" NGOs and bribing government officials, they are helping Sisi with his counterinsurgency.
Kinda makes you think "regimes" dont just fall on their own. 🤔
The Arab spring was a revolution as much as you consider stabbing a person a surgical operation... the stabber just happens to be a CIA agent.
What's the read on Egyptian social media?
Likely to lead anywhere you think? Seems like the Egyptian state has a solid grip on its populace but I'd like to be proven wrong.
Is it possible for Israel to use hatred of Israel to tear apart Egypt the same way Syria was destroyed? Release a popular dissident, back a terrorist attack, force a violent overreaction that feeds further resistance. Can Israel open that pandora's box and keep from flipping Egypt to the resistance overnight? One thing about Egypt is if things get violent there's no where for people to go. Where would Egyptian refugees escape? South through Sudan?
Why would they need to break Egypt up when it's already a US client state complicit in genocide? Egypt is likely backing the Abu Shabab gang to some degree.
The greater Israel project certainly includes parts of Egypt so it is likely a part of the long term plan
Egyptian Army has so many weapons and there is no way US-israel would risk seeing them pointed at tel aviv. Sisi is so completely alligned with zionism that his he is not under threat from them in my opinion. The Egyptian air force is the largest in Africa although Algeria is a close contender and they have access to advanced AD.
While true in the short term, in the long term they have the Suez. Israel wants it
It's true that they are probably the last in line to get targeted as is, but in the long term Israel will happily take any excuse to take some land and from the way things are going with Syria and Lebanon, the Zionists might feel unstoppable enough to try it with Egypt one day
Not if half of those weapons get blown up by the other half. No matter how aligned Egypt is, they're not going to hand back the Sinai unless they're too decimated to resist effectively. This war can drag on for years and right-wing Israelis have endless territorial ambitions.
It took 14 years to rip Syria apart. If the zionist cancer still exists as a military and economic force in Palestine 14 years from now then there will be no multipolarity and our only hope for planet earth to not be annihilated by the waste accumulation process of US imperialism will be the imminent return of al Mahdi (atfs)
Sure, but does Ben Gvir think that way? I think a portion of the Israeli government is dead set on keeping this thing rolling indefinitely so that they never have to face a reckoning. That doesn't mean they'll be able to pull it off. Israel's driving right off a cliff, just cautiously enough that the most rabid genocidaires alive today can convince themselves they're being clever about it.
ben gvir doesnt decide anything and neither does netanyahu. This is clearly Washington's war.
And im the one who gets called an antisemite...