Image depicts Bolivian trade unionists on strike in La Paz, Bolivia.
Long preamble/summary below of recent news events.
summary
The Iran ceasefire is grinding on. After a brief period over the weekend of heightened activity where it seemed that US strikes might be resuming, Trump announced a "Memorandum of Understanding" with Iran, which initially appeared to be an agreement along Iran's demands.
For those not following along with the diplomatic minutia, Iran's position for several weeks has been that the nuclear issue must be discussed separately - because, well, last time they started discussing the nuclear issue with the US, they got fucking bombed - and so have proposed a two-stage negotiation where the war is first officially ended with certain preconditions (e.g. the US has to end sanctions and unfreeze assets and presumably withdraw at least some military assets), and then the second stage will begin in which the nuclear issue is handled.
The reason why a deal has still not been signed after all this time is because the US disagrees with doing it this way, and wants the nuclear issue to be handled right away (and obviously also objects with things like Iran retaining control of the Strait). Therefore, Trump's announcement appeared to be him finally accepting reality, but it quickly became apparent that this was just another market manipulation. I'm definitely in the camp among several other analysts that believes another round of war is going to happen barring some very sudden circumstances (e.g. Trump being forced out of power one way or another, or Iran obtaining a nuke) because the US still seems agreement-incapable. And in Lebanon, consternation for the Zionists against Hezbollah's attacks continues as the FPV drone threat only continues to increase despite them desperately seeking countermeasures.
As I've been perhaps too focussed on Iran lately, here's a brief roundup of big news events from the last month or so.
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Orban losing power: Pretty cool, though his replacement being Neoliberal #2980329891 means that big changes seem unlikely.
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Strikes in Bolivia against that dipshit Paz: Very nice to see, as it appears that Bolivia has among the best widespread on-the-ground popular support for worker-centric policies and politicians in Latin America that makes it so they can genuinely pressure power (already, the Labor Minister has resigned).
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Situation in the Sahel: "Mysterious" third parties sponsored a big offensive against the AES which they largely repelled with help from Russia. The situation there is still a little tenuous as I understand it with a greater focus by anti-government forces on blockades of cities to cause internal revolts. This tactic is currently broadly failing as armed convoys are getting fuel and food into the cities, but figures like Traore are aware that more needs to be done.
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Ukraine War: Aside from the usual grinding advance by Russia on the front, there have been back-and-forth missile and drone strikes as Ukraine hit some targets in the outskirts of Moscow with drones and then Russia fired a shitload of missiles, including the iconic Oreshnik, directly at Kiev, as Simplicius and others have covered in greater detail.
I could go on and on with the recent aggressions against Cuba, Modi's recent victories in India and the AI/chip tech war between China and the US but this preamble has to end at some point due to the character limit.
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 the Zionists' 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.
imperialist puppets don't crack apparently. We've lost Syria and Venezuela, meanwhile somehow Ukraine and Saudi/UAE cling on forever. We live in hellworld where the Nazis have more morale to fight than the socialists and reasonable people.
i mean a few million in cash can paper over a lot of morale issues. i imagine Syria would have made it a bit further with a $10 billion cash infusion, but instead they were sanctioned for a decade and then their generals were bribed. Do you think Saudi Arabia would last a decade in the same situation as Syria? Also, Ukraine is a hollowed out shell of a state with debt accruing from day to day tasks on top of billions owed to Blackrock and Chevron. They can only keep the lights on with cash infusions from the West, and their only hope for temporary financial solvency is begging the West constantly. Saudis and UAE are very simple, you can’t spend billion dollar fortunes in a world where the dollar isn’t on top anymore. The nobility and business leaders in the royalist satrapies are all completely locked in on a world where USAmerican security architecture dominates SWANA, conceding to Iran or yuan transactions or hypothetical BRICSbux is the same thing as lighting their money on fire.
Paying off some of the “locals” for assistance against your target has been the colonial-imperialist playbook for centuries, longer than USA has even existed. No revolution has ever been won by the people having more money than their oppressors. If anything, the willingness to stick up for the Empire doesn’t show morale at all, it shows that these people like getting paid. There are no luxury apartments or sweetheart deals or even paychecks given to those who oppose the current order, and all the “socialists and reasonable people” almost by definition have courage and morale. Billionaire royalty and former comedians clinging to an order where they get whatever they want are hardly showing a depth of resolve or character. If a city got surrounded by an army and starved a few hundred years ago, would you call them cowards if they lasted a few months before surrendering? Modern siege equipment looks like sanctions and insurance companies, but the effect is about the same as artillery aimed at the walls.
I agree with you on Syria. They tried their best and got strangled by sanctions and international isolation, it's a tragedy. Russia admirably did their best to try and stabilize the situation as well, one of the few times where our side showed considerable solidarity. Another is with DPRK assisting Russia in Kursk.
I also agree that Ukraine is hollowed out and propped up by outside forces, and will collapse sooner or later. I'm just depressed it's taken so long. The resilience of the nazis there is deeply concerning however, Azov and the neo-nazi right are still in a strong and culturally revered position within Ukrainian society.
I am more critical of Venezuela turning over after a single decapitation strike, as well as China going along with US sanction regimes. I also don't like the lack of solidarity overall and apprehensiveness to form a "bloc" or formal alliance. DPRK and Russia have the right idea. More of that.
It's because when the empire decides to sanction someone everyone follows along. Syria and Venezuela were left alone by their allies, while Ukraine is propped by the combined industry of much the rest of Europe.
China has sanctions on Iran and north Korea but sells weapons to Israel and the puppet regimes. Same with Russia. This is what international law brain worms do, it's the nth type of liberalism. North Korean leadership is smart enough to arm Russia. And Iran to give the latest tech to their allies. But that's about it.
And even then it's neither reciprocal, nor enough, that's why Venezuela kicked of Iranian oil companies as soon as Biden offered sanctions relief or why Assad decided to reduce Iranian advisors to get a deal with the fascists.
I completely agree. 51 nations, including China and Vietnam by the way, openly engaged in Military trade with Israel during the hot phase of the genocide and provided munitions. How many nations are helping Iran? Maybe like 4? China was even following sanctions against Russia until recently, I think they still are following some? I'm not sure but this shit is so annoying. Complete lack of strategy, of alliance, of solidarity. Even India disregarded more sanctions on Russia than China did. India was more rebellious than China against the US!
China lifted some of it's Iran sanctions 2 weeks a go as a way to pressure Iran into taking a bad deal.
Then you look at who is in the leadership of china, and a lot of em are people whose families were considered revisionists during the cultural revolution. Clearly they were up to something back then, and clearly it did not go far enough.
Eh, the anti-revisionists technically invaded the DPRK because they thought Juche was revisionist, which started the bad blood between the PRC and the DPRK that lasts til this day. You have to take the bad with the good.
there has to be a middle-ground somewhere between "invade DPRK for being revisionist" and "participate in settler-colonial genocide for profit"
Mao era China had China closing higher education because Mao thought universities bred a petty bourgeoisie class of intellectuals while post-Mao era China has universities filled with liberal professors who taught that liberalism is good aktually. Such is the contrast between Mao era China and post-Mao era China.
Fair enough.
because they all forgot the important parts of liquidating bourgeoisie and opposition, and instead promote peace and dialogue led by usa
ukraine banned opposition parties, throws people in jail over disagreeing and kills union leaders, while assad was half-assing idlib turkey-cell because multilateralism or whatever, machado walks around despite being participant in 2002 coup. bahrain has imprisoned seemingly everyone on social media happy for strikes.
it should be learning moment, but no.
They would have been well within their rights to do so. Didn't a lot of the corporations that make or sell that stuff in Venezula resort to hoarding supplies in order to inflate prices and pressure the government?
Yes, at least there were rumors to that effect or that they weren’t import-dependent in some of the stuff that went suddenly missing or rose in prices.