Image is of the Preah Vihear Temple on the Cambodian border. Image sourced from the UNESCO World Heritage website.
Over the last few days, Thailand and Cambodia entered into a heightened stage of conflict due to a long-running border dispute. Like many problems on this planet, Europeans are ultimately to blame - specifically France. Certain sections of the border drawn up by France about a century ago were not fully agreed upon by both sides, with the ownership of some Khmer temples being the most visible points of disagreement.
Despite interventions in favor of Cambodia in the 1960s and later 2010s by the ICJ - one of the mainly mostly useless global institutions that liberals periodically disown - the border conflict has simmered at a generally low level. Of the two countries, Thailand is significantly more militarily and economically powerful.
Last Wednesday, a Thai soldier lost his leg by stepping on a landmine, prompting a rapid escalation between Cambodia and Thailand that has since resulted in dozens of deaths and tens of thousands displaced. Cambodia was willing to come to the negotiating table fairly quickly, but Thailand was more hesitant. International pressure on the two countries by Malaysia, China, and the United States eventually forced Thailand to the table, and they have recently agreed to an immediate ceasefire courtesy of ASEAN.
Notably, Trump refused to hold trade talks with either country until they agreed to peace, which suggests that he really wants a Nobel Peace Prize - which he seems a shoe-in for given that he's met the two most important requirements that several Nobel Peace Prize recipients have needed to meet in the past, which are: 1) start at least one war, and 2) accelerate the genocide of millions of people as billions more people watch on. His policies vis-a-vis ICE creating a domestic terror regime only further increase his chances of winning the prize.
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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.
And it was carried on the backs of an organized mass movement. Which is entirely lacking in the us.
Chavez also had factions of the military on his side. Remember that Chavez was a military man who first staged a coup before going the electoral route when the coup failed. You can't really stage a coup if you can't guarantee the loyalty of some officers and enlisted. When he was elected, the factions of the military who were not loyal to him staged their own coup, which almost succeeded. But a phone call from Castro at the 11th hour among other things saved the Bolivarian Revolution from reaction. And it goes without saying that after the defeat of the coup, Chavez purged the military of those disloyal to him and the Bolivarian Revolution.
This goes back to my initial point about how Mamdani isn't going to go far because he doesn't have his own military.
I don't think there was a mass movement until after Chávez was elected. Many people just voted for him because they were frustrated with the status quo.
Admittedly I haven't researched this too much so do correct me if I'm wrong.
A lot of people voted for him (especially within military circles) because they thought he would be like Marcos Pérez Jiménez (whom he and the Venezuelan congress did invite to his inauguration as long as Jiménez admitted his crimes). During Chavez's first years, he was basically a social democrat, he visited Wall Street and had an alliance with the liberal parties in congress.
When oil prices rose, he began abandoning most of his liberal views and started implementing his social programs (which were really good). Due to this, he gained the respect of the so-called "Colectivos," who were armed civilians that took care of their low-income neighborhoods because the state didn't care for them, and the respect of other groups. When the elite, Supreme Court, and parts of the congress and military high command (generals) found out that Chavez wasn't like Jiménez, but actually a democratic socialist, and that he wouldn't be a puppet of the system, they began to plot his removal with the help of the U.S. government (though a small group of U.S. diplomats did warn Chavez that the military was planning a coup against him).
After the coup, the Supreme Court pardoned basically everyone who took part in the coup, which led to Chavez eventually using his majority in congress to reform the Supreme Court. Nowadays, there are a bunch of Venezuelan judges who live in Miami that pretend they are the real Supreme Court of Venezuela.
There was a movement within the army called Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200. Like many militaries in South America, Venezuela had left-wing military revolts during the 1950s-1960s (besides the usual reactionary right-wing revolts and dictatorships during the 1940s-1950s). Chávez's original plan was to install a civilian government in Venezuela to end the economic and social crisis. President Carlos Andrés Pérez had ordered the literal massacre of civilians during the 1989 protests. Chávez regained popularity by the later 1990s because South America had another economic crisis due to the failure of Neoliberalism. There were a lot of protests (the 1999 March in Brazil, the 2001 Argentinazo, the fall of Fujimori in 2000, and the military coup in Ecuador in 2000), which led to the first Pink Tide.
Very grateful for your comments here, always
Thanks