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The three countries have also withdrawn from ECOWAS.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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It's crazy that this line of thinking seemingly only ever gets recognized here when it's stuff like "Iran controls the Houthis, Hezbollah does whatever Iran tells them". The UAE and the KSA are countries with their own ambitions and goals separate from the US, and the US has a long history of not just playing both sides of conflict, but also keeping regional powers divided and bickering to prevent either or both from becoming more of a regional threat to US power. Or is the argument here that the US told the Saudis to sign the Chinese-brokered diplomatic deal with Iran?
The UAE, KSA, and other major economic powers in the region have all been making mad dash buy up East African assets for the past two decades. They are competing for assets and don't always just back the same sides. The Saudis are invested in Somalia and Djibouti, and have effectively pushed the UAE out of the latter. The UAE military have port access in Eritrea, but that's not as useful as having a port on the Gulf of Aden side of the strait, where they don't have to sail by Houthi positions. These countries have their own interests that can and do often clash, the same way all of these countries were backing their own pet militias in Syria. The US doesn't give a shit about who attacks who in Yemen, because the weapons the KSA supplies to their guys and the weapons the UAE supplies to their guys are all coming from the same deal: the US.
Not anymore, they got kicked out. Eritrea did a 180 since the gaza genocide. Thats why the Somaliland deal finally happened.
I know they wound down operations in Assab, but I didn't hear about them getting kicked out entirely. My understanding is that Eritrea isn't happy with them over the UAE aiding Ethiopia in Tigray and their concern that the UAE might back Ethiopia in an invasion of Eritrea to regain a port(s) lost with Eritrean independence.
The UAE actually started building the port in Berbera (Somaliland) in 2017. They (along with a lot of other countries) are scrambling to set up modern ports in the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden because it's a more logistically convenient location for East-West maritime trade than the Jebel Ali port in Dubai. So if someone can manage to set up a major port/free trade zone, they will likely control a lot of future maritime trade flow.
No they dont they are first of all all comprador classes instated and proped up by the west, without america they wouldn't last a month. Their main interest is not having that happen.
These are not real countries, they are as fake and illegitimate as the Zionist entity, extensions of it.
the chaos they cause is in us interest, the Chinese brokered deal indeed benefits the us, it normalizes and legitimizes Saudi, integrates Chinese interests with American ones, and further isolated Iran, just like the defence pact with Pakistan.
There is a scale of vassalage between us-occupied Afghanistan and the UK, both are vassal states, but the UK wouldn't last less than a month even if the us retreated at large. Again, if these governments were so weak that they needed so much us support and are so dependent on us barking orders, then America would have just annexed them directly.
The BENEFIT of having vassals is that they can act autonomously and not need incessant resource input by the Metropole. BUT that also means that vassals can act out or build their peripheral empire (which is how most empires actually came to be, as peripheral vassals who rose as their overlord declined). AND it also means there is a section of the vassal elite that wants/benefits from being a vassal. AND it also means the vassal needs to actually make sure their overlord don't neglect them (back then it was kowtowing to the emperor, nowadays it's AIPAC)
Saying that country x is a vassal and meaning they have no "agency" and everything is 43945037490234329D chess move by the american president is mechanical materialism, the same is the case with claiming the us doesnt influence these governments at all (even when clearly is fatal to their own interests, like Nordstream or Plaza Accords). DIALECTAL one foremost should think - vassals are influenced but the vassal also needs to influence.
These countries and their rules have their own interests, the same as every other country. They work with the US to the extent that the US can fulfill their goals, be that expanding their wealth, staying alive, or whatever else their hearts. And should the day come that someone else, like China, can make those goals real more than the US can, they will scurry off America's sinking ship and onto China's. Thye aren't going to willingly go down with our ship, if and when they should happen. But at the moment, the US is who gives them their wealth and their weapons. Equating them to mindless automatons who do whatever the US tells them is just Orientalism with Anti-Imperialist Characteristics.
And for that matter, do not underestimate the number of their subjects who are perfectly content with the current order in their countries, especially given the riches it has brought them over the past few decades. Theirs as many Saudis and Emeratis who are as happy with and proud of the current state of their country as their are Americans who hold the same feelings towards the US.
Actually on par, if not even higher than the foremost treatler class of the west.
These people were all installed by western interests, and serve western interests. The ruling class is completely removed from the rest of society. That's why they don't share a national interest.
China would not send troops to defend them. Without the us they are gone it would take perhaps a little over a month to see all these people hanged. They are not playing both sides, because there is no other side.
Claiming they are clever and independent, when so far we have only seen them further colonial interests, is the propaganda they tell their people and you to seem legitimate. They are not, let's not legitimize these colonial regimes.
The House of Saud is 50 years older than the United States. The start of the (current) Third Saudi State, the Emirate of Riyahd, began over a decade before the British even dreamed about arming the Arabs against the Ottomans. They won most of the Arabian Pemninsula through conquest. If anyone even could rightfully claim to have installed the House of Saud, it would be Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahab, not any Western states.
They are not "disconnected" from their citizens. Saudi and Emiratis are just treatlerites. They get free healthcare, free education, pensions, economic development, and stability that the Arab democracies directly bordering them all almost uniformly lack. These people are in no hurry to see a revolutionary upheaval of their countries anymore than most Americans are eager to see that in the US. They are comfortable, and comfortable people rarely make a fuss.
This is not correct. The first Saudi-Wahhabi stated was squashed into nothing by the Ottoman's Egyptian viceroy Ibraheem Pasha in early 19th century after they raided Mecca and denied Muslims access to prayer. The leader Abdullah al-Saud was beheaded in Istanbul and the whole clan was reduced to basically nothing.
The second Saudi-Wahhabi state lasted barely twenty years afterwards the Saud clan was exiled to Kuwait.
The third conquering of the Peninsula started with Abdul Aziz having no more than 40 soldiers to take Riyadh in 1902. Vassiliev outlines how on multiple occasions ibn Saud had to cry to the British to save his fledgling zionist project before the establishment of the "Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" in the 1930's, including when the British Air force saved him from rebellion by his own Ikhwan fighters in the late 1920's. The Saudi Wahhabi cartel would not control the Arabian Peninsula without the British.
Book: Alexei Vassiliev, History of Saudi Arabia Chapters 5-7
Furthermore it is absolutely incorrect to characterize all the people in the "Kingdom" as completely happy bought off. The Kingdom is an incredibly repressive hellscape for wide swaths of minority groups, especially the Shia who comprise the majority in the oil rich regions in the East. The Saudis are justifiably worried about uprisings from the people they occupy. This is precisely why they executed the martyr Nimr al Nimr.
Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr before he was executed by the Saudi-Wahhabi cartel in 2016.
Map.
Of course, UAE is just another country comprised exclusively of wealthy exploiters and has absolutely no major internal class contradictions.
Saudi Arabia another very regular normal country where everyone is bought off which is why they are executing 1 person a day on average by death penalty, many for political reasons.
TIL 2/3 of the UAE's population is from South Asia.
FYI the user you are replying to has already described people in this thread who disagreed with OP as "semi-sentient telegram channels".