Image is sourced from this article.
Those who were around in the early days of the news megathread may remember Pedro Castillo, the left-leaning leader of Peru who was deposed in December 2022. He was replaced by Dina Boluarte, the first woman to be President of Peru, who described herself as a progressive but afterwards routinely sided with Peruvian conservatives and American interests. To say she was unpopular is an understatement of titanic proportions - she descended to such lows that she was, at one point, the single most unpopular leader on the planet. As with most deeply unpopular leaders that side with the West, she kept power for a bafflingly long time.
However, on October 10th, after a period of protests against the government, she was impeached and removed by Peru's Congress in a unanimous vote. José Jerí was sworn in as the new President, who was previously the President of the Congress and is a member of a centrist Peruvian party. The government is trying the classic strategy: keep doing the same thing as before, and sacrifice an unpopular figure - here, Boluarte - in the hopes that this appeases the crowd.
Is this strategy working? It doesn't really seem to be - protests are not only continuing, but strengthening, as it is clear that neoliberalism will not reformed and the brutality by police will not stop (there was very recently a high-profile case in which a musician, Mauricio Ruiz, was murdered). Controversies surrounding Jerí, including allegations of SA, are already being reported. If Jerí is deposed, the next person in line to try their hand at ruling will be the former army general Roberto Chiabra, who would be the ninth President in less than a decade.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
The USS Gerald Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier and warship, has now been redirected from the Mediterranean to the Carribean ocean along with it's strike group and air wing, in the latest buildup of US military assets around Venezuela.
Chief Pentagon Spokesperson Sean Parnell:
Source
Nobody in the US is saying "wow isn't this a bit overkill for some narcos?"
death to the "united states of america" and death to "israel".
It been overkill for months now, just getting more obvious. But I don't think your average person not interested in military hardware would be able to tell. But now, moving the world's largest aircraft carrier to Venezuela's coast, I think it's obvious enough now.
I think this serves as more signalling to Maduro and the Venezuelan government and military (and the wider region) that the US is very serious about this. The US has enough mid air refueling capacity to do this mission from the continental United States. But by moving an aircraft carrier from Europe, they are sending a very public message to Maduro.
Saw this. This is escalating fast.
7 days until the carrier travels over the Atlantic from Mediterranean Ocean?
Looks like it. And I think a nuclear powered submarine is going around that area too
Nuclear powered and Nuclear armed? Or does it carry conventional warheads, is that public information?
Says powered but...,.
All US subs are nuclear powered, but only the SSBN’s are capable of carrying nuclear armed missiles, and they are always armed with them.
I don't want an invasion, but if it happens, I hope they take out an aircraft carrier.
Does Venezuela or Colombia have the means to sink an aircraft carrier? I thought even Iran was a 'maybe' and it seems like they are not nearly as up to date militarily.
I REALLY doubt it.
And if a country does it MIGHT be Venezuela, but even though they have been recovering economically at quite a large pace, I don't think they are anywhere near the possibility of taking the dying empire head on, the way Iran did. The Venezuelan economy collapsed way too hard and they have had historically few allies in the region for them to stand the same chance as Iran did.
I hope I'm wrong and they Venezuela has some wunderwaffe. Otherwise they, and us in Colombia, are majorly fucked.
EDIT: This applies to naval or aerial warfare. I don't think any country in the region has the means to defend ourselves against that.
Land based war though?? Oh baby you are talking Vietnam levels of humilliation for the US, I can almost guarantee that.
The biggest threat to US ships would be Kh-31 supersonic cruise missiles launched by Venezuelan Su-30s, with a maximum range of 38-60 nautical miles (nmi)/70-110km. But I highly doubt that the Venezuelan air force gets off of the ground in the event of war. Even if they do do get off the ground, the SM-6 missile (launched from AEGIS equipped ships or F/A-18s) has a maximum range estimated in excess of 200 nmi/370km, and the AIM-120D (launched from F-35s, F-22s and F/A-18s, as well as other fighters) has an estimated maximum range of 90-100nmi/160-180km, and the AIM-120D-3 in excess of that. Venezuelan aircraft are far out ranged by US anti aircraft missiles.
Other than that they have some Iranian patrol boats with Iranian versions of C-701s, subsonic cruise missiles with a range of 20nmi/37km. They may also have a single frigate (and maybe some patrol boats) in service with Otomat Mk2 or C-802 subsonic cruise missiles, which have a range of around 100nmi/180km. But that's they're longest range anti ship missiles. Again, vastly out ranged by US anti ship missiles or aircraft.
I was just about to post about that. Apparently, it will take about 7 to 20 days to reach Venezuela, as the aircraft carrier was in Eastern Europe.
Yeah last seen in the Adriatic Sea.
Source, satellite imagery
So it'll take a week at least to arrive. I think we have until hurricane season is over (end of November ) before things can potentially get very bad.
Is hurricane season really that bad for such a fleet? I thought these warships can survive storms well.
Not going to take out the fleet, but we still have over a month left of hurricane season and they wouldn't want a storm suddenly developing to halt their plans in the middle of a potential airstike campaign or invasion. Also serves as a little extra negotiation time, or extra time for the CIA to stir stuff up, or for factions of the Venezuelan military to split off.
The US also waited for the end of hurricane season before invading Panama.
F35 can't fly on the rain
I imagine landing and starting an aircraft from a mobile sea platform during a storm is hard as well. The US Navy has lost personnel during storms on the flight deck of aircraft carriers, its dangerous.
You can’t fly aircraft or missiles in that kind of weather, or launch boats. Also, it will be miserable for everyone on even the big ships, even if it won’t really sink them or heavily damage them. Although, the radio, radar antennas, and guns/launchers are definitely at risk.
It was last seen at the coast of Mallorca, that is not Eastern Europe, but closer to Spain / Israel.
Im just imagining them rolling an aircraft carrier down some polish highway coz they didnt realise warsaw isn't on the beach
I do not like this. not one bit
Not sure what to hope for.
That this is a feint and they will attack Iran again. Or maybe Iran should attack when the US does.
I don't know what a "good" scenario could be.