LandSpace, a Chinese commercial launch providers, is set to launch its second flight of the Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3) partially reusable launch vehicle from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Inner Mongolia. The first flight back in December 2025 successfully launched a mass simulator, but the first stage engines failed to reignite for the landing attempt. Although western spaceflight enthusiasts and media are bound to call it a falcon 9 ripoff, their only similarities are that they have 9 engines, landing legs, and gridfins. ZQ-3 uses completely different engines, different fuels, different materials, and has a much cooler paint job. The launch is going to be in about an hour and a half from now, I will post the link to a livestream of the launch when I find one. 
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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Bulletins and International News Discussion from August 17th to August 23rd, 2026 - The Pivot From Asia?
(hexbear.net)
My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
Aside from the virtually daily Iranian strikes on the Oman route, the main threat that the US is facing in this newest phase of the war is logistics. With Bahrain and the UAE unsafe, the closest safest port in the theater is Diego Garcia, which is over 2000 miles away. Either the aircraft carriers would have to go to Diego Garcia to restock, which would be even less planes and missiles available should hostilities restart suddenly, or goods have to be shuttled to the aircraft carriers from Diego Garcia. This latter option appears to be too much for the US to handle, with widespread reports of dwindling supplies and morale on the USS Abraham Lincoln (and, to a lesser extent, the USS George HW Bush). These reports have culminated in the USS George Washington being sent from the Pacific to replace the Lincoln, which was the sole aircraft carrier in that whole theater. There are six more carriers in maintenance, leaving two carriers left that could even hypothetically be called upon should the USS George HW Bush need replacement; both are currently undergoing training, and of these two, the USS Theodore Roosevelt might be available soon; perhaps even as soon as September. I'm unsure whether the Roosevelt will be sent to the Pacific to replace the Washington, or if it'll be sent to the Middle East to replace the Bush. Nonetheless, that the situation has deteriorated to the point where we can speculate on how very limited naval vessels are going to be distributed is yet one more indication among many of the decline of US naval power. The symbolism was too much for me to ignore, hence the title: the last aircraft carrier in the Pacific being forced to leave, and not under military pressure in some hypothetical war against China, but to try and relieve logistical burdens elsewhere in a war of the US's own making.
This joins Trump's statements that the US will only be taking a very limited part in the South Korean military exercises. This is nominally because of the "great ties" the US shares with the DPRK, but this is an embarrassingly transparent face-saving statement. The DPRK is an increasingly major potential threat to South Korea, a major regional power and economy, but are also helping Russia with both manpower and materiel and getting military experience and data on their missiles' effectiveness in return.
The US's Under Secretary of War, Elbridge Colby, recently visited the Philippines. There, he gave a speech that promised to continue the construction of a defensive network that would deny China the possibility of militarily advancing through the Pacific by stationing US forces inside friendly countries. This is the NATO approach: our mere presence will deter the enemy because they would not want to start a direct war with us, and in exchange, you have to hand over billions upon billions of dollars. Colby gave the Philippines that most backhanded of compliments, the "model ally", and stated that the US was “definitely not disengaging from Asia”. My "We aren't pivoting away from Asia" shirt has people asking a lot of questions that are already answered by my shirt.
If you're a US-friendly country in the Pacific and possess even the slightest sense of self-preservation, you are surely feeling nervous. The US is moving its aircraft carrier out of the theater. Overseas, you've seen how Iran - a very strong regional country, to be sure, but not as powerful as the industrial juggernaut and nuclear superpower that is China - has nonetheless crippled several undefendable US bases, has exhausted a very large amount of American air defense missiles, is holding the global economy hostage, and the US can seemingly do nothing to stop them. You have to be looking at your own US bases, likely expensive and unpopular, and all the money you're handing over to the US, and glancing at how the Gulf states are bickering of being betrayed by their ally who promised them protection and immediately retreated. You have to be looking at your economy and its dependence on China. You have to be looking at Ukraine, and the unenviable state of destruction it has been driven to as a puppet of the US. You have to be looking at China itself, and how its military is rapidly developing in all fields, and how it's even catching up on microchip development. In all, you have to be really hoping that China is serious that they only plan a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, and that the US will not do something incredibly, stupidly reckless in their decline.
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 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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There is something that really boils my blood about Israelis doing this shit whilst we have to sit in the UK hearing about how evil our immigrants are for daring to try and live quiet lives without being executed in the street.
Can't wait to see videos of these people getting their teeth kicked in. Big daddy USA isn't protecting your ass in the Philippines.
Theyve had a massive presence in India for decades, with whole towns putting all their signage in Hebrew just to cater to Israelis.
I wonder how far this will go before they start getting redacted the second people realize who these shitheads are when they start doing this stuff.
Lots of places to lose a body in the jungle
Winning friends everywhere they go
Tel Aviv attacked Syria again:
"The Syrian Arab Republic condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli airstrikes targeting the Abu Duhur military air base in Idlib province and considers them an unjustified act of aggression," the statement says, urging the international community and the United Nations Security Council to "take a firm position against Israel’s repeated violations of Syrian sovereignty." In this regard, Damascus accused Israel of seeking to provoke an escalation and of attempting to "undermine efforts to strengthen stability" in the Middle East.
urging the international community and the United Nations Security Council to "take a firm position against Israel’s repeated violations of Syrian sovereignty."
lol okay, but when the Entity was violating the sovereignty of all of Syria's neighbors where was Syria's "firm position" then? what an impotent, pathetic and self serving statement
In this regard, Damascus accused Israel of seeking to provoke an escalation and of attempting to "undermine efforts to strengthen stability" in the Middle East.
Watch out, next they'll accuse water of being wet
Whipped dog makes public statement condemning being whipped saying, "This is not what we stand for" and "hope master will still give me treats".
Tel Aviv attacked
Syria again
I thought the zionazis were the ones being attacked for a second
I wonder what the Finnish SDP is up to these days?
[2026-08-14] SDP: Immigrants should abandon "incompatible practices" from home countries
I guess with an unpopular fascist Finns Party, someone has to step up to ensure that the Fascism dial is dialed...
Some key excerpts...
The paper therefore called for immigrants to commit to "the core values and norms of Finnish society" and abandon "incompatible practices from their countries of origin."
It proposes exploring whether access to social security could be linked to language studies, while also considering limits on free interpreting services after immigrants have lived in Finland for a certain period.
The government have been ratcheting up the language study requirement in the past few years. I guess it's never enough. It was always a proxy for 
but now they have to immiserate the people that do manage to make it in.
That's pretty similar to the joint racist screed published by Italian fascist leader Giorgia Meloni and Danish social democrat leader Mette Frederiksen about a week ago.
They claimed to defend the Christian heritage of Europe in order to "protect our nations and Europe". Claiming that "ordinary people" has "paid far too high a price for uncontrolled immigration" for too long, they accused undocumented immigrants of being the cause of serious crime, drug trafficking, sexual assault and — the fucking gall — degraded welfare services.
Frederiksen and Meloni declared that respecting laws are not enough, refugees and immigrants - undocumented as well as documented - also have to "respect european values", whatever the hell that is, and should not "force a way of life on us that we do not want", which is presumably something the big muslamic world conspiracy is just about to do.
The two brownshirts made no specific policy proposals outside of reiterating their demand for offshore black site concentration camps for refugees as well as other "innovative solutions outside of Europe" to protect the racial purity of the continent.
Meter Frederiksen is the lesser evil in Danish politics, by the way. Her competition is even more Hitlerite.
Claiming that "ordinary people" has "paid far too high a price for uncontrolled immigration" for too long, they accused undocumented immigrants of being the cause of serious crime, drug trafficking, sexual assault and — the fucking gall — degraded welfare services.
Maybe Europeans should have thought about this before they went around the world murdering and pillaging then
The government have been ratcheting up the language study requirement in the past few years
what does this look like in finland? do you need to demonstrate proficiency in finnish within some number of years of arriving?
There is a language requirement to gain citizenship in Finland. You have to pass the YKI exam at a certain proficiency in one of the two national languages, Finnish or Swedish. Swedish is obviously much easier for speakers of Germanic languages like English, so this is what most choose, but it is less practical than Finnish, unless you live along the western coast such as Turku or Vaasa, where there are relatively high rates of Swedish language.
Beginning of 2026 they significantly increased the requirements for permanent residence which is different from citizenship. At a time when Finland has the highest unemployment rate in the EU — many of these being immigrants without language skills required by almost all jobs — they set the bar higher, and much higher if unemployed. If you lose your basis for temporary residence from when you arrived, there is a real risk of being made to leave. This is what permanent residence protects you from; once permanent, you don’t need to prove you have a valid basis for being there.
I suppose the main point of my post is that there is a ratchet process occurring. Finland has relatively lax immigration compared with some countries, but that holdover from more social-democratic eras is rapidly changing. Furthermore, tying social security to language is more severe than simply requiring language for citizenship.
The UAE suspends all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran
- Middle East Spectator
The impotent death throes of a discarded client state that doesn't know it's already dead
Interesting. I've heard that UAE has given Iran a lot of gold/money for guarantees that they won't be targeted anymore via drones. UAE denies this of course. So is this a cover? Is there actually something to this?
Iran’s Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf: ‘The Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the U.S. naval blockade is lifted, our frozen assets are released, oil sanctions are removed, threats and military operations on all fronts end, and all terms of the Memorandum of Understanding are fulfilled.’
- Middle East Spectator
Russia is shipping UAV components, ammunition, and TNT to Iran via the Caspian Sea, a route that is difficult to effectively disrupt.
- Slava Intel
Dealing with closures of the Bab el Mandeb and Hormuz simultaneously has proved too much of a trifle to serve as sufficient challenge for the US Navy, I say they take a little exercise and sail a carrier strike group through the Bosporus and show those Ruskis what for!
not ambitious enough. I say they sail over the caucasus and reach the caspian sea itself
White House officials have reportedly communicated to political allies that they are shifting their strategy, going from “hammer Iran ASAP” to “strangle them” over time.
Today marks day 171 of the Iran War.
Holy shit they are absolutely brain-dead, "strangle Iran" is only viable if Iran doesn't control the straits, otherwise the clock is ticking not for Iran but for your worthless client states along the Gulf, these fail sons of proper imperialists can't seem to hold more than one conditionality in their heads at any given time
This really is end-state imperial incompetence manifested in real-time
Guy getting strangled: I can wait this out
don't take iran immediately, siege it
~~Zerg rush~~ don't do the negotiations.
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Bolivia: The President's most senior adviser has just been arrested for hiring hitmen to murder his girlfriend (she was shot 3 times in a luxury hotel). He's a far-right extremist from Argentina, and has now become the main link between the US govt & the Latin American right.
Being a Dem fundraiser/consultant is a really sweet gig. $390 million raised, of that $20 million went to actual candidates. Most of the "Fundraising" line item is just consultants paying money to their own companies or to their friends.
if i'm reading this right, they're using 63% of the money they take in in to ask for more money?
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Nono, my mom said that I own Hormuz, not you.
Bit idea: sell American citizen cruises to the strait
But literally if you were Israeli
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https://xcancel.com/morris_que14/status/2089106534118605094
South Korea proposes talks to officially end war with North, per BBC
> US withdraws last aircraft carrier from East Asia
> Peace spontaneously breaks out
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Israel [sic] is increasingly worried about collapsing public support in the US following its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza
Naming you're institute after a city in Germany to help cover for your genocide sure if an interesting choice.
Ok, I get it might not be, but still... Come on.
Well, Israel is Germany after all.
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The imperialist chatbots already censor themselves to be at minimum both-sidesing Palestine.
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