Image is of the Galapagos Islands, sourced from here.
Moving the megathread topic slightly away from the chaos of the United States and going back around the world, we will begin with paying attention to Ecuador.
Ecuador has been ruled by Daniel Noboa since 2023, after he won the snap election. He's about as ghoulish as one gets; a neoliberal right-winger and as much as a marionette to the United States as Milei. Two months ago, he gave effective control of the Galapagos Islands to the United States and is allowing them to build a military base there - beginning the potential conversion from a natural paradise to unsinkable aircraft carrier.
We are now seeing the rematch between Noboa and Gonzalez; the latter of which is a leftist politician with a similar ideology to Correa, the socialist who ruled Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The divide in Ecuador today is largely between the Correaists and those who oppose them, though Leonidas Iza represents the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador and commands a notable share of the vote.
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.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. 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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
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.
Mayor of Reykjavík dissolves coalition on a whim
via RÚV
Einar Þorsteinsson, mayor and leader of the Progressive Party in Reykjavík, blew up the majority in the city council on Friday. He immediately began talks with parties in the minority about a new majority, but it quickly became clear that this would not work.The mayor said he was forced to end the majority partnership because he could not reach a consensus on planning, financial issues or preschool issues. Einar then said in an interview at the beginning of last week that the majority was shaken by the airport in Vatnsmýri. Arguments about it are said to have taken place at a “heat meeting” on Tuesday.
Einar says that Heiða Björg Hilmisdóttir, leader of the Social Democratic Party, reacted angrily when he agreed with the Independence Party on the airport at a city council meeting. She described his words as the end of the majority partnership.
Who started it?
Representatives of the other parties in the majority give little credit for this. The loss of the majority was not discussed at this heated meeting of the leaders, neither during the meeting itself nor during the break.
The disagreement over the airport was not greater than before and that little had changed that should give reason to end the collaboration.
The Progressive Party, with Einar as leader, was recently measured with only 3.3 percent support. According to this Gallup poll, the majority would not have held if elections had been held. The Independence Party is measured with the most support and the Social Democratic Party with the second most.
Everyone talking to everyone
Einar is said to have started talking to representatives of the minority in the city council before he went to a meeting of his colleagues in the city council on Friday and announced that he wanted to end the collaboration.
He then said in an interview with RÚV after the meeting that he wanted to continue as mayor and invited formal talks there about forming a new majority.
23 representatives sit on the city council from 8 parties. In order to form a majority, 12 representatives are needed.
As early as Friday, it was obvious that Einar was counting on cooperation with the Independence Party, because together the parties had 10 representatives and only needed two more.
On Saturday, Inga Sæland, chairwoman of the People's Party, announced that working with the Independence Party in the city council was out of the question. The Socialists, Left Greens and Pirates have also ruled out cooperation with the Independence Party.
Now the situation has turned around. The representatives who have not ruled out cooperation are the only representative of Viðreisn and five representatives of the Samfylking. But they have just been betrayed by Einar, who blew up their majority.
Weekend talks and discussions
When it became clear that Einar could not work with the minority representatives, all formal discussions fell through. City councilors held informal talks on Sunday where they explored how the city should be governed next year.
It is possible to form a majority without the involvement of the Progressive Party and the Independence Party. To do this, the Coalition, Viðreisn and Pirates need to get four representatives instead of the Progressive Party; the entire minority outside the Independence Party.
Elections 2022 and next election 2026
The majority that exploded on Friday was formed after the 2022 elections with representatives from the Coalition, the Progressive Party, Viðreisn and Pirates. The Progressive Party had received a good election with a new leader in the bridge and had the cards in its hand.
The majority's oddities that Einar blew up when the collaboration was announced in the summer of 2022. Dagur B. Eggertsson became mayor to begin with, but it was decided that Einar would take over in the middle of the election term. This happened at the beginning of 2024. Dagur was then elected to the Alþingi in November and Heiða B. Hilmisdóttir is now the leader of the Social Democratic Party.
The next local elections in Iceland will be in the spring of 2026. That is why there is only a little over a year until the election. It is clear that the party support surveys have not strengthened Einar in his belief that collaboration with the majority that blew up would float him back to the mayor's chair. It is uncertain whether it was the grain that filled the meter.
We could get a wholly leftist city council because of this
Reykjavík is basically all of Iceland, so thats like almost a leftist country.
per capita, the only metric that matters!