Image is of protestors in Nigeria in 2024.
As I'm sure everybody is aware by now, Trump's accusation that Nigerian armed groups are unfairly persecuting Christians in the country is a rather bizarre lie, seeking a justification to go in, to quote Trump, "guns-a-blazing". Whether this is likely to actually occur or is merely a threat, who can really say nowadays? But Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province are targeting people in Nigeria fairly indiscriminately; insomuch that there is a target, it is farmers whose land is being raided and taken in resource conflicts, and their religious affiliation is not usually questioned by those groups before they are pillaged and/or murdered from what I can tell.
The President of Nigeria, Tinubu, has no small responsibility for this state of affairs - enacting IMF "reforms" which have exacerbated hunger, poverty, and unemployment in the service of Western financial institutions. Those who have protested against this state of affairs have faced repression by state security forces. Meanwhile, Tinubu allegedly has strong connections to the DEA, paying large amounts of money to avoid a trial for his actions; the DEA released this statement: “We oppose the full… release of the DEA’s Bola Tinubu heroin trafficking investigation records,” which is certainly not concerning at all - followed by “While Nigerians have a right to be informed about what their government is up to, they do not have a right to know what their president is up to.”
It must be a shame for him that such a loyal subject of empire is facing such scrutiny, and it likely has everything to do with Nigeria's inexorably growing connections to China (just like pretty much every country on the planet), especially in relation to Nigeria's massive mineral deposits. It could also perhaps be retribution for Nigeria's failure to adequately oppose the growing independence of the Sahel.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
Some more brilliant strategic thinking by the EU here, see point twenty regarding establishing closer official relations with Taiwan.
When various EU thinkers have talked about europe needing strategic autonomy instead of just following the American lead, I doubt they meant independently following the most fervent American neocon fantasy as policy.
This kind of thing where the US eggs on its vassals while having more conciliatory policies itself is interesting though and might be valuable for American interests. I'm not sure what the consequences would be if the loudest voices for war and interference are coming from the lapdogs instead of the master.
It would be very funny if the EU starts some shit with China for purely ideological reasons and the US just stays neutral.
Aaah, when we said that we do recognize your 'One China' policy, we weren't talking about the actual 'One China' policy, but about some hidden EU policy that happens to have the same name but means something entirely different. It is not that we were lying the entire time, you just weren't paying enough attention to our 'One China' policy that we are still keeping secret from the entire world and even ourselves for that matter!
Would actually be pretty ideal as it would further crush the EU as a competitor to the US, do some damage to China and leave the US with the power to go to China and say basically either give us some concessions or maybe we join them, but play your cards right and we won't stop your retaliation either. Maybe they try and force the EU to decouple from China first. It destroys the EU but the demand of the EU combined market eventually creates just enough impetus for friend-shoring some large amount of stuff to India, the US, Asian vassals (Japan, occupied Korea, etc). Meanwhile the US is spared the pain, reaps a mightly profit and can do its own decoupling much more softly because the EU already took the gut-punch to make it viable for them. Would really accomplish a lot of US goals and leave EU in such dire straits the US could poach their top minds and talent, force their NATO vassals into wars abroad with China over resources in the 2030s to seize as much of the world as possible, and build up climate fortress USA for the coming climate change hell that awaits us all as we plunge into 4-degrees C warming and beyond.
It's like Russia which was possibly a test for this. They made the EU decouple hardest from everything but energy they absolutely couldn't do without while the US stepped in to sell them alternatives, force them to buy US weapons, and drew them closer and deeper into NATO subjugation under the US while harming Russia and the EU maximally with the US profiting from the sidelines. Russia is also best seen as a practice for modern combat against China, to learn what it will look like, and to whip up demand and impetus for re-arming NATO and creating the production capacity needed to stay in a prolonged fight with China.