Welcome to c/news! We aim to foster a book-club type environment for discussion and critical analysis of the news. Our policy objectives are:
To learn about and discuss meaningful news, analysis and perspectives from around the world, with a focus on news outside the Anglosphere and beyond what is normally seen in corporate media (e.g. anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, Marxist, Indigenous, LGBTQ, people of colour).
To encourage community members to contribute commentary and for others to thoughtfully engage with this material.
To support healthy and good faith discussion as comrades, sharpening our analytical skills and helping one another better understand geopolitics.
We ask community members to appreciate the uncertainty inherent in critical analysis of current events, the need to constantly learn, and take part in the community with humility. None of us are the One True Leftist, not even you, the reader.
Newcomm and Newsmega Rules:
The Hexbear Code of Conduct and Terms of Service apply here.
Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.
Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.
Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.
Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.
Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.
Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.
American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.
Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.
AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.
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.
In the Chinese zodiac, 2026 is year of the effort post. DM me to feature effort posts and good threads in the newsmega/newscomm here (including your own).
Note updated comm rules in the sidebar text.
Previous posts of the week: Oct 27 | Nov 3 | Nov 10 | Nov 17 | Nov 24 | Dec 1 | Dec 8 | Dec 15 | Dec 22
@SoyViking@hexbear.net, I see Denmark is privatizing letter postage there. My Canadian dad told me because right-wing radio media here presented it to him as "no one sends letters anymore" even though I read Dao, the private company operating there, is expecting to increase letter business from 30 to 80 million letters next year, which doesn't sound like "no mail" to me.
Pentagon announces $8.6 billion Boeing contract for F-15 jets for Israel
Still wild that the US-Israeli regime runs its airforce on like 3 airframes, all of which are supposedly "multirole" lmao.
It's only necessary for them to look like they can do something other than bomb residential areas.
UPDATE: Anarcho Capitalism? No no, I was saying Narco-Capitalism!
A new law raises the threshold of how much money Argentines can spend without reporting it to tax authorities and encourages people to use the dollars stuffed ‘under their mattress’
President Javier Milei scored two wins on Friday: the congressional approval of his first budget bill, and the creation of a new law that applies the principle of innocence to tax evasion, with the goal of allowing Argentines to use their savings — especially dollars — with less supervision from authorities. The law, known as “fiscal innocence,” modifies the Argentine tax system, loosening controls and raising the threshold of how much money Argentines can spend without justifying where the funds came from.
One of its main goals is to encourage people to use the dollars they keep “under the mattress” — a term used to describe the money that is kept outside the bank system and that, therefore, is not part of the country’s cash flow. “Although the Argentine judiciary system states that we are all innocent until proven guilty, regarding tax issues we were all guilty until proven innocent,” Milei said in an interview with Radio Mitre on Saturday.
In an X post after the law passed, the president wrote that the new legislation is “revolutionary” and that it will “bring back the freedom” to use savings. “We are protecting Argentines’ savings forever. No government that comes after us will be able to rob the savings of good citizens.”
A new simplified income tax regime was created as part of the law. It will allow taxpayers who sign up to the scheme to no longer have to periodically inform authorities what their assets are, reducing bureaucratic steps. Their taxes will be calculated on the basis of their formal earnings. The regime only applies to residents with income exclusively of Argentine origin.
Economy Minister Luis Caputo said that, with the new law, people can make a dollar deposit in their bank and start using the money immediately and that the only requirement banks should ask for is to be registered in the simplified income tax regime. “If your bank starts asking for more information, don’t waste your time,” he wrote on X, recommending that people go to the state-owned Banco Nación instead.
If the bank asks you where did you get these 50,000 USD just tell them to fuck off and die.
The law has raised concerns over the possibility that it could be used to commit crimes such as tax evasion, money laundering and even drug-trafficking without the state stopping them. Months ago, when the government filed the bill, Milei said that he did not care how Argentines use their money and where it comes from, and that if there is an issue it should be solved by the judiciary, adding that the criminal sphere should be completely separate from fiscal controls.
Narcos will have a field day with this law.
Tax evaders, he also said, “are heroes, not criminals”, a phrase the anarcho-capitalist has repeated often, to signal his criticism of the high level of taxation Argentina has had in the past, to finance its constant fiscal deficit.
How the new regime works
The new fiscal law allows Argentines to use up to close to US$70,000 without having to declare its origins to the national tax agency ARCA. Up until now, taxpayers were considered to be engaging in tax evasion if they were unable to prove the origin of any expense above US$1,000, a number the government considered outdated.
Now, residents will start being investigated when they make unjustified money movements starting at AR$100 million (almost US$68,000). Undeclared movements of AR$1 billion (US$680,000) or more are now considered to be aggravated tax evasion, which carries a potential jail time of up to nine years. With the new law, ARCA will also pardon those who cancel their tax debt and interests, meaning they will not file a criminal complaint against them. This benefit can only be used one time per person. If a complaint has already been filed but the taxpayer pays the debt, interests and an additional 50% fine, the authorities will remove the complaint.
The statute of limitations for tax debts was also lowered from five to three years, meaning those who don’t pay will be let off the hook quicker. If registered in the new simplified income tax regime, people with annual earnings below AR$1 billion (US$680,000) and assets below AR$10,000 billion (US$6.8 million) will not be considered large taxpayers and ARCA will no longer look into their spendings or their assets.
The agency will only take into account the income the taxpayer informs and their deductible spendings to calculate how much they have to pay for their taxes. This means that those taxpayers will be able to buy assets or make large money transfers without being obligated to inform the nature of those movements to the tax agency or bank. “Now, you will be able to spend all you want and no one will be controlling you or collecting taxes based on your declared income,” Milei told Radio Mitre.
Now the question is, will Trump, the Great Crusader Against Drug Traffickers, bomb milei's attempt at building a narco state?
The biggest issue for milei today is getting US Dollars. There are three ways for him: Privatisations (which will see in 2026), Loans (which will never end) and going after people's savings. Argentina has A LOT of US Dollars but they're out of circulation, meaning people are keeping them somewhere in their homes stashed away from the banks and the state, milei wants them. This law is made not just to benefit some particular shady people linked with milei but also to suck up argentine's savings and get them in circulation. This practice of buying US Dollars and keep them as savings is common in Argentina, it's a reliable way of protecting your finances from inflation (like buying Euros or Gold) because the US Dollar rarely depreciates compared to the Peso, which is agonizing. This practice became very popular after the Corralito in 2001, where a fuckton of people lost their savings in US Dollars which were "safeguarded" by the same banks that left the country during these terrible years, never to be seen again. A lot of people lost their entire life savings in mere moments, which led to increased rates of suicides.
Anyways, and as always: DEATH TO "ISRAEL"
"We will take all possible measures to support the brotherly Somali people, including considering any Israeli presence in Somaliland a military target for our armed forces, as it constitutes aggression against Somalia and Yemen, and a threat to the security of the region."
— Sayyid Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi
28 December 2025
They struck open water to the north and south of Taiwan, and filmed the impacts too, to prove their accuracy (see end of the video above).
Safe to say the focus on MLRS is because of the contents of the US arms deal (HIMARS, ATACMS).
That looks pretty accurate holy shit
An Imgur link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
I saw something online saying that North Korea was also taking part in these fire exercises or doing some of their own, idk if this is true though.
Wouldn't that be unusual? I didn't think the PRC and DPRK did direct military collaboration like that.
Story that I don't think was covered here: the sinking of russian cargo ship Ursa Major, which is now a year later being alleged by a spanish newspaper to have been carrying nuclear reactors to DPRK for their nuclear submarine program (which I didn't know was a thing tbh), and report from inspecting the wreckage indicating it was sunk by "external explosions" (they are claiming the holes in the ship were consistent with supercavitating torpedos)
It is hard for me to believe that Russia would be sending nuclear reactor parts to North Korea via the Mediterranean versus the Trans-Siberian railway or even a cargo ship via the Artic, but I guess I've seen stupider things.
The nuclear sub program has been going for a long time supposedly, and may take longer if the dipshits in Moscow don't remember that they can send the parts eastwards instead.
Perused Reuters' front page for the first time in awhile and god damn is it bad.
Facing Alawite backlash, Syria’s new leaders take controversial steps to win loyalty
Focuses on being mad at Assad and anyone connected to Assad who's in the current government and not why Alawites might be mad at the government.
US strikes drug boat loading facility in Venezuela, Trump says
Doesn't push back at all on it.
China fires rockets towards Taiwan in war games simulating blockade
"Reuters was not immediately able to verify whether China also launched rockets in the other zones it had demarcated for the exercises. . . Lyle Goldstein, Asia programme director at U.S.-based think tank Defense Priorities . . . "
So, towards Taiwan, as in, into the water at least 24 nautical miles off the coast of Taiwan with no verification and it's not even clear what their source for the claim is because no one is named making this actual claim, though at the very end it mentioned a pentagon report, which is what I assume is actually the basis of most of this article.
US economy to ride tax cut tailwind but faces risks
The upshot: a better outlook for businesses stuck for much of this past year in a "low-hire, low-fire" mode.
Pretty sure companies were in high-fire mode, hence unemployment skyrocketing considering 5 days ago you literally published an article saying unemployment checks went up.
there should be some consequences for journalists running cover for genocidal crimes. These people are no different to Der Stürmer writers and should meet the same end
Reuters, NYT, AP News have helped create the consent for so much death in the world. Probably even worse than openly right wing media because libs think they are objective, and actually do have good journalism occasionally, but will just broadcast whatever made up narrative from the state. 
