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The three countries have also withdrawn from ECOWAS.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.
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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.
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.
Lol. Danish state TV is calling the Nobel Peace Prize winner "a true democrat", is claiming that she "has huge popular support" and are already talking about her like it is given that she will be installed as leader of Venezuela.
Venezuelans hate her so much even Maduro’s opposition in the country have been distancing themselves from her
That is true, she is so fucking awful lmao
Most so called opposition venezuelans support Henrique Caprilles bc he's just a generic lib who promotes socdem policies. meanwhile Machado is a racist, xenophobic, homophobic zionist monster who supports the genocide of native americans and black venezuelans, she was part of the 2002 coup.
I literally cannot name one thing she has done to earn a Nobel of any kind.
I can name one: Serving western imperialism
she offered to sell the whole country to the gringos, how much more peaceful can you get?
That is the level of farce we are on now.
Any sort of legitimacy has given way to pure fascist absurdity.
The Nobel peace prize never had any legitimacy. It would be like if Musk started handing out Musk Award of Excellence to random people.
Speaking of Denmark; Have you reported on the new year's speech by the divinely appointed ruler of the hermit kingdom in the north?
What Did the King Do On His Vacation? - Dispatches From a Cult of Personality Without the Personality
I posted the wrong link before. This one should work: https://hexbear.net/comment/6792880
I found it and greatly appreciated it. Midway thru the speech I started missing Daisy. What an awful speech
The speech was atrociously written and amateurishly performed. A complete disaster. These people have vast resources available to them, there are scores of highly skilled professional writers and actors and coaches who would give an arm and a leg to be commissioned to help them. And this trainwreck is the best they could produce?
But everyone keeps pretending that these buffoons are talented and excellent at everything they do. You could pick the first 100 random people on the street and tell them that the speech was shit and they would look at you like you had just told them the earth was flat before embarking on an incoherent rambling about how good and nice and relatable the royals are. Even most people who oppose the monarchy as an institution will go to great lengths to make sure you know how much they like and admire the royals as individual persons.
It's the emperor's new clothes. The king is an uncharismatic clown with no discernable personality besides jogging and no apparent talent for statecraft but everyone pretends that he is the best at everything and anyone who dares say otherwise is being shunned from polite society.
Denmark's cult of personality is just as batshit insane as what westerners imagine it's going on in North Korea.
A thing I really enjoyed about your report is how clear it made it to me how much of the speech is just listening to someone ramble on about their vacation. Never realised it before. Just some Gen x'er showing you pictures, doing a travelogue to an entire nation.
Not to mention you have to listen to people go on and on about how hard it is to be a royal because they're in the tabloids or whatever. Shit make me a royal then. I'll fuck around in the east indies like the old queen consort on a state dime. "Oh no you photographed me drunk in public" I'll say as I have that journalist blacklisted due to my familys' close ties to the press and government. And then I'll have a party for a couple million, financed with the shadow fund.
I watched it with some very left-wing friends, and even then I had to hear from one how it wasn't scaremongering. "But he spoke about how letting people in is nice!" yeah... Right after yelling about russians coming for 10 minutes and only so that he could reinforce our "christian cultural values" and "carrying on traditions".
That speech was dystopian. 6 years ago if you'd seen that in a crime thriller about a near-future danish state, you'd go "that's a bit on the nose, isn't it?"
At least Margrethe had whimsy. She was still royal, but I got the feeling she'd have done something cool with the arts otherwise. Even if she only got in due to nepotism. I can't believe this dumb fuck isn't only king, but somehow not destroying the royal family
Yeah. People will go "oh it's just a bit of fun" and then cheer on a member of his private guard as they violently assault a peaceful protestor. Saw someone say that he should be happy and not protest because "in Russia he'd have gotten a lot more than a hard shove". How is this shit working? I can't believe the dane is actually so empty-headed. But they must be. Looking forward to an even more right-wing government as Lars Løkke somehow continues to get votes and Mette Frederiksen too. The country is just... I keep returning to this thought: "put two serious people in suits on DR and have them mildly disagree on how much we should genocide Russia, and the next day you'll hear every argument regurgitated by every one of your coworkers as if it's an original belief they've held for years." It's bleak.
Another thing about the speech that pissed me off. He went on and on about "the crafts" and handymen and so on and then tied it back into the theme of tradition by mentioning traditional methods of construction that are still in use and thriving - Among these the method of using seaweed for roofing.
The only reason that method is thriving is because of an architecture student deciding to write her thesis on the process some years ago. It was nearly forgotten, but her research, highlighting how it was a good local green alternative to other materials and methods brought it back and helped revitalize some dying local businesses. What an incredible layup to talk about education! No. Fuck that. Fuck students. Fuck learning, fuck education, fuck culture, fuck it all. Go out there, hate russians, pay your taxes, fear for your life, and die quietly please.
edit: Additionally about the protesters. Frederik wants to be "the climate king" yet no words was said about that. Ridiculous
I hope they parade her around only bc the more she's outside the higher the chance we get a certified Charlie K moment
"The USA is a true Democracy unlike the recessive hermit kingdom of Denmark, and enjoys huge support from the population of Greenland. Under the USA, Greenland will taste true freedom, free from aggressively woke danish oppression."