news

To start as usual with the West Asia, I get the sense that we're once again teetering on the edge of war between the US/Zionists and Iran, with Iran putting itself on high alert and conducting a major military exercise using dozens of ballistic missiles. I greatly struggle to see for what possible reason the US would try and attack Iran again when it's been repeatedly proven that it simply isn't going to work and that the consequences you receive are much worse than the damage you deal. The only conceivable motivation is a near-manic short-term desperation to try and bend the curve upwards on upcoming electoral results. Trump apparently covertly asked Iran if he could symbolically bomb Pickaxe Mountain without retribution and was denied - for those unaware, it's a site in central Iran where the US speculates Iran is rapidly creating a nuclear enrichment facility for nefarious purposes.

The situation in Yemen continues its positive trend for Ansarallah, with their forces now entering Taiz proper after having taken all the territory around it, while also cementing their hold on the coastal plains near the Red Sea by taking some of the mountainous heights there. Egypt has made signals that it may get involved militarily, joining the club of countries that are trying and failing to stop Ansarallah. It's a situation that, if you'll excuse an imprecise historical comparison, is reminiscent of the situation in the then-newborn USSR, where an international coalition tried and failed to save the losing, reactionary side of the civil war there. With oil and transportation infrastructure getting hit all the time and various international meetings and summits getting cancelled and MBS seeming (rightfully) quite paranoid, the Saudi position is looking increasingly untenable. It has similarities with the Zionist entity in late 2023 - their choice is to stop their genocide, engage in diplomacy, and survive a bit longer; or continue their genocide and, in the process, anger everybody, and risk being destroyed in the process.

I admit that it took about two months longer than I predicted, but the spark that was the US attacking Iran is now a conflagration spreading around the world. Several of the protests didn't begin due to problems with fossil fuel supplies, to be clear, but it's certainly contributing to the public anger in pretty much every case. It's hard for me to even be aware of all the protests and riots going on, let alone mention them, let alone analyse them, so to just go through a smattering of the ones that have received a lot of press coverage, we have: France, which began as students protesting an idiotic attempt at education reform and now involves at least over 500,000 and perhaps closer to a million people; in Albania, where protestors are demanding the resignation of their Prime Minister and are now burning down state buildings; in Italy, Portugal, and Belgium, which are simultaneously protesting education and/or austerity; massive protests in India which began months ago due to economic hardship in general and the Chief Justice calling the unemployed "cockroaches" in particular; in Indonesia, with protestors angry at the lack of a meaningful response to the extreme wildfires; in Pakistan, protesting the slide into de facto dictatorship under Army Chief Asim Munir; and lots of smaller scale protests and strikes around the world usually consisting of people who directly depend on diesel (truckers, farmers, etc) who simply cannot afford to keep working while fuel is so expensive.

Without the influence of socialist organizations, it's likely that many protests will be at least temporarily repressed; however, while the situation in the Middle East goes unresolved and the Zionists continue to refuse to accept Iran's conditions, Lenin's dictum of "every society is three meals away from chaos" may start to apply regardless. We're still at least a good few months away from that in most countries, but the trend line is definitely visible.

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.

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.