this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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Bulletins and International News Discussion from December 29th 2025 to January 4th 2026 - A Bold Step Forward For The AES
(hexbear.net)
At the start of last week concluded the Summit of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES in French), in which, among other significant news, was the announcement of the creation of a unified military force for the alliance - called, rather straightforwardly, the Unified Force - which currently consists of about 5000 soldiers. Strictly speaking, joint military operations between the three countries had already been taking place for over a year before this point, but I imagine this organization streamlines the internal processes and makes it truly official.
Mali's Goïta delivered a speech during the summit in which he stated there were three main threats to the alliance: military, economic, and media. While this new military force is a major effort to combat military threats, the three countries have also mutually launched television, radio, and print media organizations to combat disinformation and psychological warfare. The economic aspect is the most tricky aspect of all, as (albeit decaying) American hegemony is not friendly to states which seek an independent economic path, most especially if that path does not directly benefit Western international corporations. Nonetheless, the three countries are doing what they can; they mutually launched an AES passport earlier in 2025, and this month, Mali has taken a bold move, recovering $1.2 billion after renegotiating mining deals with mining corporations after a comprehensive audit. Gold mining in Mali is a major sector of the economy, comprising about 20% of annual government revenue.
The three countries have also withdrawn from ECOWAS. The remaining countries consist of a small collection of West African countries, most significantly among them Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. ECOWAS is increasingly seen by the AES leadership - quite rightfully - as an organization which seeks to contain the radical shift in West Africa and return the region to the neocolonial French-governed status quo. As I talked about in a semi-recent news megathread, Nigeria is experiencing its own suite of internal problems, so perhaps in the coming years, ECOWAS will crumble from within and the AES can push back the terrorist organizations threatening them.
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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
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I'm still accepting bingo submissions until January 1st, you can see all the current predictions here. Also, Azarova@hexbear.net posted a filled out 2025 news bingo card here (Thank you, I lost the original)
U.S. recession, not like the 'mini' one.
Dollar depreciates (but no de-dollarization).
Third world countries continue to struggle economically, implementing further austerity and internal devaluation measures to try win export competitiveness.
OPERATION TRUE PROMISE IV BAYBEEEEEEE
Democrats reclaim a branch of the government (house/senate) rendering Trump a lame duck for the rest of his term. Warmongering doesn't stop though because what is the War Powers Act or the Constitution even?
A major Cat 5 hurricane makes landfall in the US. That gulf hardly had any cooling off this last year so it's been cooking. We're due. Trump might get his Katrina moment.
Recession is offically declared as the admin can't keept sweeping it under the rug.
AI bubble collapse because no way in hell does anything justify a $4 trillion dollar valuation for any single company. cough NVIDA. China has already lapped the empire. Probably will kick out NVIDA as home grown brands take over. No matter what it does China will be ahead.
Trump starts rapid firing his cabinet picks to deflect from critism.
AUKUS deal collapses.
People forgo movie theaters as VR becomes mainstream where they are inserted into the scene and can have an interactive 360 view and become the star themselves.
Bibi finally dies.
Saudis exposed for being the Zionazi cucks.
Man walking around with penis out for decades now "exposed" lmao.
Zelesky getting assasinated is more likely than just being deposed. He tried to assasinate putin. Even trump hates him now
The head of Ukraine's military intelligence, Budanov, admitted some time ago that they'd attempted to assassinate Putin like dozens of times already. If Zelensky gets got, it won't be by Russia. He serves their interests by perpetually making bad decisions and, at least for now, being an obstacle towards a negotiated settlement, as Russia is accelerating towards fulfilling all goals (and possibly more) of the SMO on the battlefield.
Oh for sure, for Putin, Zelensky is great. But even trump knows you don't go after Putin. Hell, amerika might merc zelensky after all this. Or the nazis will
Obligatory:
But in seriousness, I'd bet on him getting got by the latter via stochastic terrorism, thanks to classic "we were stabbed in the back" fascist rhetoric.
Israel wins Eurovision.
Major false flag attack in Europe by Mossad, blamed on Islamists. (+ discussion on hexbear bulletin and international news about how unsafe jewish communities are in europe and about right wing islamic terror)
Russia allowed back in FIFA under conditions.
Austria joins NATO hastly and without referendum.
EU seizes frozen Russian state assets.
China does nothing.
Catastrophic European heatwave kills thousands, mostly elderly.
Assassination of Burkina Faso's President Ibrahim Traoré.
South Africa implements controversial white farmer reparations.
Another genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Vatican-China deal on bishop appointments causes Catholic schism.
Nile Crisis: Egypt issues military ultimatum to Ethiopia over dam.
Iran conducts low-yield "demonstration" nuclear test.
I misread that as "Australia" and thought "Oh shit, they probably would drop all pretense and just do that, wouldn't they?"
Cyprus is more likely and Moldova which will only cause further destabilization.
Guy who has to move over to the next diocese because of his principled pro-China stance in a chud parish (it's me)
Waste of a space, "Ireland joins NATO" would at least be in the realm of possiblity if not extremely unlikely.
Why do you say that? Do you have insider knowledge of the Irish labour movement? There is a window of opportunity being created in retail workers so I don’t see it as impossible. Progress in labour movement has little to do with government decision to join NATO.
There will not be a national strikeover Israel, you may get a repeat of the Dunnes Strike, but that consisted of a handful of people and was pretty much ignored until Desmond Tutu personally showed up to support them.
Once more I am asking you what inside info you have to draw this conclusion. Do you know how a national strike is organised? It doesn’t matter all that much if previous actions were unpopular. The main requirement for a national strike is solid infrastructure, and comrades in Ireland are trying to build this. Whether a strike will happen or not, I don’t know. But if you have more knowledge about this I would like to know.
There are a lot of bad news bingo picks so I'm gonna give some good news squares.
Senegal, Chad, or Benin enter into some kind of affiliate relationship with the AES that is structured for eventual full membership
Major mass movements in Bolivia oust Paz.
Milei dies or goes to prison
Greens get a strong second in a snap UK election
The Burnese civil war ends with the Tatmadaw out and a shaky leftist coalition coming to power
Modi dies or goes to prison
Only if there is a new coup. The current government wont. The Ivory Coast is also a place to look out for.
Yup, and no likelier time for that than right after a failed attempt.
russia continues cuck perseverance run
sturmer is kicked out, tories get new leader as well
france announces troop deployments to ukraine
middle east twerks even more for its master-entity (saudis and syrians join accords, kurds celebrate 20 years of strong ties)
merz cdu craters under 20%, die linke still fuck it up.
entity wins eurovision
gold crashes below 4k (or goldbugs are even more right
)
china sends 5 strong worded letters when usa attacks venezuela and cuba
new ai models stay same-y, market gets bigmad, they get bailed out by pentagon
rightwinger will win in brazil, cause lula is too busy aura farming
india attacks bangladesh
euro crashes (to less than a dollar)