Image is sourced from this article depicting the 28th ASEAN Plus Three Summit, which took place at the same time as the 47th ASEAN Summit.
Last week concluded the 47th summit of ASEAN in Malaysia as well as a swathe of concurrent summits surrounding ASEAN. For those unfamiliar, formally, China is not a member of ASEAN, but is part of the ASEAN Plus Three (as part of the "Three", alongside Japan and Occupied Southern Korea). And while not really ASEAN, there is also a yet wider organization, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which tacks on Australia and New Zealand to the group of countries that are currently in ASEAN (which is the single largest trade bloc on the planet). At the summit, Timor-Leste was officially introduced into ASEAN, making it the 11th country to do and the first since Cambodia in 1999.
Many important figures throughout Asia, as well as Trump, Ramaphosa, and Lula, attended the event. As you can imagine, Trump's appearance was not exactly positive - signing four rather coerced bilateral deals there, including with Malaysia, which forced those countries to buy American goods in exchange for certain exemptions from Trump's high tariff regime. The US is currently in a bit of a panic due to China restricting access to rare earths, a critical component of many weapons technologies (and electronics in general) and is looking around for countries to help supply them. After the summit, the US and China signed a deal related to tariffs and rare earths, but it seems very unlikely that this is the end of the saga; the US politically, economically, and militarily cannot tolerate China's existence as a sovereign actor and will try to overcome them until the American Empire topples.
Meanwhile, China did as they ordinarily do, and urged higher regional integration and trade without high tariffs, as well as adherence to the Global Governance Initiative (which, as we here never tire of noting, is an interesting thing to try and encourage while the US only more feverishly violates the sovereignty of nations everywhere). One hopes they're supplying a bit more than just speeches to Venezuela, Cuba, and beyond, as the US prepares to start bombing.
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.
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.
Complete breakdown of the 2025 Iraqi Parliamentary Elections
Bismillah
We mustn’t forget that this place started as an offshoot of a certain subreddit that was named r/ChapoTrapHouse, a place that Islamic explorer Qathib Al Kabir visited in 1441 AH. He wrote this in his memoirs:
I also saw the Chapos. They had come to post and had disembarked upon the front page of Reddit. Never have I seen minds so convinced of their own dialectical perfection. They’re fair, of average stature, they wear neither suits nor ties, and their main source of illumination is their triple monitors. Every man wears a hoodie that covers half his dignity, so that one arm may clutch a vape.
They carry irony, memes, and citations to Lenin and Wikipedia, and always have them to hand. They wield podcast microphones of formidable make, forged in the fires of struggle sessions. They speak of electoralism with a fervor both mocking and sincere.
Yet I beheld among them a curious contradiction, they sin greatly by committing to electoralism, whispering of “lesser evils” and “harm reduction” as if these were sacraments. When such weakness overcomes them, they hasten to atone. They do this not by prayer, but by posting a certain picture of Lenin, his gaze stern yet forgiving, accompanied by words of repentance and a number of ironic upvotes. Thus their consciences are cleansed, and they return once more to the holy work of posting.
The Travels of Qathib Al Kabir, p.69.
Here we are in 2025, and I’m writing a mega post on the Iraqi Parliamentary Elections that are set to be held on November 11th. Call this a homage to Chapo’s electoral past, but I’m a nerd, you’re all nerds, so let’s just jump into it.
Section 1 - The Electorial System
The election is administered by the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), an autonomous body established under Article 102 of the Iraqi Constitution. The IHEC handles voter registration, candidate certification, polling logistics, and result tabulation. I’m not sure about this point, but I expect the election to be observed by UN Assistance Mission for Iraq and the European Union. The election for all seats of the national legislature, the Council of Representatives of Iraq (329 seats). The outcome of the election is not just about seats, the Council of Representatives has the responsibility of approving the formation of government (including the Prime Minister), and the President of Iraq will also be elected by Parliament. Every Iraqi citizen aged 18 and over is eligible to vote, even inmates and internally displaced refugees are also fully eligible to vote and will be given the chance to vote on the 9th and 10th before the official election day on the 11th.
The 329 seats are allocated after the population of each governorate. It looks like this for this upcoming election:
The seats for women is a minimum, more women can be elected if they beat the men, but the idea is that women are always at least 25% of Parliament. The minority seats reflect where the minorities mainly live. The three seats for minorities in Nineveh for example are one for Christians, one for Yazidis and one for Shabaks. When polls close on 11 November 2025, ballot boxes from all polling stations are sealed and transported under supervision to provincial counting centers managed by the Independent High Electoral Commission. Votes are then tallied electronically and manually. Once provincial results are verified, IHEC announces the official seat distribution, often in a televised press conference and via their official website, after which political blocs begin negotiations to form a government.
::: spoiler Section 2 - Breakdown of Parties and Candidates by Region
I initially broke down this by governorate, but it became too cluttered. I know my long ass tables are popular within megathread circles, but you’re getting wide boi tables that will break the thread on mobile instead of many long tables.
I have divided the country into four regions to make it easier for everyone. Region 1 is Baghdad, the mixed capital with a fat number of seats. Region 2 is the Shia-majority South (Babil, Basra, Dhi Qar, Karbala, Maysan, Muthanna, Najaf, Qadisiyya, Wasit), because the exact same parties are running in pretty much every governorate here. Region 3 is Sunni Arab-majority governorates (Anbar, Diyala, Nineveh, Saladin), because again it looks kinda similar here, but with a little twist in Diyala and Nineveh, as we have significant Kurdish and Shia minorities in those governorates. Region 4 is Kurdish-majority governorates (Duhok, Erbil, Kirkuk, Sulaymaniyah), similar parties in all governorates, with an important Arab + Turkmen minority in Kirkuk.
PART TWO FOLLOWS IN COMMENTS
Is this the guy that founded the Babylon Brigades to fight against ISIS, and then got sanctioned by the US because of ties to the Popular Mobilisation Forces and video emerged of him cutting someone's ear off? Certainly a character.
Al Mada is reporting that the US is behind decisions to try remove the Babylon Brigades from Hamdaniya district.
That's the guy. What an insane character, but all his contradictions have left an overall positive effect on Christian visibility in the country. I mostly don't agree with him and he's definitely more of a mafia leader than an actual politician, but I respect the pure grind mentality in getting a pretty oversized chair at the table of power in Iraq. Chaldeans are a minority within a minority, but he's up there with the big boys, being involved even more than most Sunnis and Kurds in making the big decisions in the country.