this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026

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Bulletins and International News Discussion from July 13th to July 19th, 2026 - Renewed Iran/US Fighting / Ansarallah and Saudis Entering Hot Phase of Conflict? / Lindsay Graham, Pro Life, Dies Anyway (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 days ago by SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

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A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of smoke rising after Iranian missiles impact a US military site in Bahrain.

My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preamble

After a few weeks of both diplomatic and military manuevering - mostly over Iranian control of Hormuz - we have hit the hottest phase of military exchanges since at least the MoU period began. The US has generally focussed on striking southern Iran, although they have also sporadically hit transportation infrastructure elsewhere, which was repaired in less than 24 hours. Meanwhile, Iran has struck a wide range of targets, with an interesting focus on Jordan, but has, up to the time of me writing this, so far relented on striking the Zionist entity. The US and Iran have had little periods of mutual military strikes during the "ceasefire" before, and so it's hard to tell for sure whether this yet another temporary spat or if it represents a full return to the pre-ceasefire conflict.

A complicating factor in this conflict is that Ansarallah has become increasingly active, and seems eager to start to break the siege it has been put under by threatening to attack Saudi Arabia and Saudi-aligned forces. This has put Iran in a somewhat awkward spot. On the one hand, it has greatly helped Ansarallah resist foreign attackers and has even recently sent civilian airplanes into Sana'a to begin to break the siege. On the other hand, Iran has, with China's help, generally desired to improve its relationship with the Saudis over the years. While in this latest war there have been a major dispute between them over whether Iran is "allowed" to strike US military infrastructure located in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis strike me as considerably less anti-Iran as the UAE, let alone the Zionists, and did send a delegation to Khamenei's funeral. I guess we'll just have to see what happens next, but I strongly suspect that Iran is going to help Yemen over the Saudis.

And finally, Lindsay Graham has died of a sudden heart attack a suspiciously short time after visiting Ukraine. He was a true enemy of civilian populations all the way to the end of his life, and he seemed to particularly despise children. He advocated for using nukes against Gaza and the total annihilation of anybody and everybody who had even the meekest criticism of Zionism. If God (and, more pertinently in this case, Satan) does exist, I hope Graham is extended the exact same level of courtesy and respect in the afterlife that Graham extended to all Palestinians.

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

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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:

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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[–] seaposting@hexbear.net 38 points 10 hours ago

Southeast Asia's Real Decolonization Is Only Beginning Now, Driven by China's Rise

Full article in link.

(Yicai) July 15 – A new stage in the decolonization in Southeast Asia began recently, triggered not by politics but by the transformative regional growth driven by China's phenomenal rise, according to the executive director of Penang Institute, one of Malaysia's major public policy think tanks.

"The broad shift in global economic productivity to East Asia has redrawn supply chains into a tight network in the region," Dr Ooi Kee Beng said in a recent interview with Yicai…

…The sudden tremendous influx of capital from a growing neighbouring big power should not be seen so much as a threat to be managed as a tidal force exposing how little the region was ever truly its own master even after colonialism, according to Ooi. The biggest misconception outsiders have about modern Southeast Asia after the world war, or during the Cold War, has been that it is a coherent geopolitical region. The region is better understood as one that is defined from without rather than from within by some centripetal force. The historical fact is that the region was very much cut into bits in recent centuries, and its economic and socio-economic connections from pre-colonial times were badly broken.

Although archipelagic, the region had more significant ties between islands and between coastlines and between East and Southeast Asia in pre-colonial times than in the postcolonial era.

In the new era of nation states and with national borders imitating colonial borders, people in the region did not really travel much between these new countries. Their modern orientation continued to veer towards their respective colonial metropolises. Only with budget airlines since 2009 and with ASEAN's open skies initiative were ordinary Southeast Asians able to get to know each other's countries more seriously through cheap and constant flights.

Ooi pointed out: "We began getting to know each other again only quite recently, at the people level."

…Real cross-cultural interactions occur at street level: "If I sit down with you for a meal and eat your food, I begin to feel that I know you," he said, adding that China's visa-free policy for several Southeast Asian nations is wonderful for regional socialisation. "You don't have to do much. Let people mix, and they will get to know each other and learn about each other."

Regionalizing Nationalism

The real decolonization of Southeast Asia is only beginning. Each former colony may have won independence, but each stays strongly wired to its old metropole, such as Indonesia to the Dutch, and Malaysia and Singapore to London. These newly independent countries are barely comfortable in each other's presence, ASEAN or not, Ooi noted. It is the recent rise of a regional great power that finally forces them to consider why they have been relating so weakly to their immediate neighbours and so strongly to their former masters, he said.

He claimed that there is a necessity to "regionalize nationalism—in the region and anywhere else."

Smaller countries on the Belt and Road need to be more proactive within a historical understanding of their own situation and to act accordingly, and not just wait passively for bigger powers like Beijing to design everything from the top down with its own interests in mind, he said.

What he calls "Little BRIs" can feature smaller countries getting together, cognizant of giant regional-spanning projects being planned, to develop on their own terms their input and participation in them. This is clearly a possibility where continental speedy rail systems are concerned. Other areas would include maritime logistics, merchant shipping, and security links where the region's own states could exercise more control.

Countries that keep thinking of themselves as small and passive—as victims of history and of size—risk locking themselves into staying that way, Ooi claimed.

The view from Penang, in the end, is not about choosing between China and the United States but about how regional discourses are formulated for accepting differences rather than ranking them, Ooi stressed. The global economic and political wave reshaping the region's factories and ports, and its worries and hopes, is less a tsunami than a long-postponed invitation to a conversation the region writ large has never quite had with itself, he said.