Image of destruction in Mandalay, Myanmar, from Al Jazeera.
As if the ongoing civil war wasn't enough, Myanmar has now been struck by a very powerful earthquake, resulting in 2000 deaths and thousands more injured as of the time of writing. Estimates are that the death toll could reach 10,000. Infrastructure like roads and bridges are damaged, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. The earthquake struck during Eid prayers, resulting in even higher casualties as several mosques collapsed. 20 million people already required humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, and now the situation there will be even worse. International rescue teams have rushed into the country, and aid is being raised, though with USAID experiencing the... changes that it is, the United States will be of even more limited help than usual. So far, China has sent $14 million, while USAID has supplied $2 million. In Thailand, the death toll seems considerably lower, though there has still been significant damage; a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.
Myanmar is located very close to the boundary between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In particular, the country is divided in two by the north-south oriented Sagaing fault. This fault is typically strike-slip; that is, each side of the fault moves horizontally past each other. The earthquake's depth was 10 kilometers, which is pretty shallow, and its proximity to the surface amplified the felt force of the earthquake. Additionally, the soft soil in this region tends to further amplify seismic waves through a process called liquefaction. Combine all this with the lackluster building codes due to many years of impoverishment and civil wars, and this explains why the death toll, and the expense to the country in general to repair damage, will probably be extremely high.
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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.
So as usual anything that seems like it would be bad for the U.S. is good for them actually and it's all part of their master plan?
Can't say I'm surprised.
excuse me while my brain continues to deteoriate. hopefully soon i wont be forced to perceive anything anymre
Whenever things feel too down or Imperialism feels too powerful, I keep in mind the article that 72Trillion posted months ago (and others have shared)
https://reportofanimals.com/2024/11/05/the-demiurge-does-not-exist/
72's post and summary is found here:
https://hexbear.net/post/3937061
Essentially it is an argument against pessimism - feeling as if imperialism is some all powerful 10d chess master demirge who always comes out on top. And for revolutionary optimism grounded in historical materialism and an analysis of the current situation.
There is reason to be optimistic. (Though in the short term I definitely feel you when it comes to doom. Our moment is a sad and painful one.)
and the article goes on in much detail to argue this not from some "everything must come to an end" angle but from an analysis of the real decline of US power and the emergence of alternatives. From the unsustainablility of imperialism itself as a system.
Essentially the author offers a critique of fetishizing power. Treating it as if exists in itself and can perpetuate itself without material limits.
And like others here have argued. I really respect shipwreck and their knowledge. They add a lot to this mega. But I often have this feeling that their focus of analysis treats finance as if it is the end-all be-all power. I believe they've even said that money is the closest thing to magic we've encountered. And I don't know enough to articulate my views, so i can't offer much more than vibes, but I fear that too much of an emphasis on finance and money, without an analysis of production and labor falls risk of fetishizing financial power. Money only has power because if can direct social labor. And it is this labor, i.e the people themselves, where real power lies and real change lies.
I try to keep that in mind when others give the impression there's some 10d financial move that people say will secure the next thousand year American Reich.
The demiurge does not exist. Even if its presence is felt.
as long as you think the real economy doesn't matter, yes
the growing independence of the global south? irrelevant
declining trade in the dollar? never heard of her
Russia's Ukraine victory? I didn't see it
China? don't see why it matters
the US losing global power and sway across every single conceivable metric? sorry, look at the chart I just imagined
this website has been badly infected by xiaohonshu thought
Not the shade at poor xiaohonshu! I thought they brought an interesting perspective to consider.
But the idea that america will somehow industrialize without americans working for less than Indian workers, and having less labour rights, AND an growing population, is a bit unrealistic.
Shipwreck's analysis is alright, but they suck at predicting the future, which eventually began coloring my perspective of their analysis. Seriously, go read up some of the shit they wrote years ago and how a lot of it just didn't pan out. It's really obvious when you read his massive posts about Biden. Can we truly say that we had the power of hindsight while smirking at Shipwreck's posts characterizing Biden as a 10-d chess grandmaster that has outplayed China and Russia or was Shipwreck just wrong for not factoring in Biden's deteriorating brain that would cause Biden to drop out of the race rendering his 10-d chess grandmaster skills moot for 2025-2028?
1989 Biden wasn't even clever, the man has been midbrained at best his entire life
I don’t really get the hate on here tbh. People are able to change and grow. I’ve only been reading their posts for a year or so and sure, there has been an amount of doomerism which they admit to themselves, but their analysis has been material and helpful. I’ve also seen them engage in thoughtful discussion with critics. No one else has gone as deep into monetary theory and Chinese economics as them on here that I’ve seen. I don’t think it’s that useful (or kind) to dismiss their contributions in this way.
I'm not trying to dismiss them entirely, to be clear. They are a very knowledgeable and astute political observer who brought a perspective not available to the majority of users on this website. I like them quite a lot and they are always extremely thoughtful and considerate in conversation.
But that unique contribution and good communication has been inflated to the status of a minor Hexbear prophet in the church of the news mega.
I think that’s somewhat exaggerated but not entirely unfair. The best way to remedy that is to try and encourage a plurality of thoughtful and comprehensive analysis.
To be clear, my comment wasn’t directed just at you but others down the thread as well.
Yeah the Biden posts were something.
Nothing will top "should China nuke the US after getting nuked by the US?"
Imagine saying no to that lmao
I think China should nuke the US right now, in a first strike. Couldn't imagine being such a pacifist you wouldn't nuke in MAD situation
The part that I dislike the most is assuming the retaliatory nukes wouldn't get launched anyways from the survivors avenging their family and friends who got nuked. The question treats the military personnel behind the nukes as pawns with no human agency whatsoever. Imagine if the CPC is somehow stupid enough to not order retaliatory strikes. Would the actual PLA personnel abide by that stupid order or would they exercise their human agency and press the red button anyways?
I mean I dont see the benefits of temperance after that.
Their perspective was very valuable, but their conclusions have become the only metric by which the entire state of the world is measured, and even then only from a limited perspective.
That's not true, I just don't have the time to argue with what I assume is a Chinese grad student who reads too much Michael Hudson.
Why the past tense? They banned?
They've just been silent for like a month, and not from the username switches they had done a few names before
Apologies, but I'm not sure what you mean. Syria, Argentina, Palestine have all suffered losses of independence recently. Are there any examples of the opposite outside of Sahel?
Russia defeating Ukraine
Which makes Russia more independent than it was in 2022, 2014, and/or earlier hours, how, exactly?
NATO is still at the door via Finland and the Baltics.
Russia has failed to replace NATO technology usage domestically and does not seem to be undertaking any serious effort in this regard.
Russia's attempts to get into nanotechnology have failed, and the project and its associated companies are going down.
Russia is still a semi-peripheral state.
Sure, the war might soon end with NATO defeated in Ukraine, but then what? It seems that Russia is just going to go for normalization of relations with NATO and its just going to solidify its place as a supplier of cheap resources and cheap labour to NATO.
the middle east? maybe a more specific, conceivable metric: Syria? Hezbollah?
The us, EU & israel definitely lost a lot of soft power due to recent middle eastern "adventures". A sign of open conflict is also an indication of weaknesses to gain your goals through the "carrot".
But strategically, anti-imperialist forces have suffered a setback with Syria, with the Lebanon ceasefire and the resumption of the Gaza genocide
You know as well as I do what the response to these points would be: Russia, China, the whole of the global south will still be using the dollar to trade since BRICS hasn’t yet (and they would say doesn’t plan to) stepped up to actually form an alternative currency/economic order
maybe but they are increasingly doing their dollar trade outside the US financial system via stablecoins like tether
HK is rising again as a financial center
I’ll believe it when I see it
look and you will
Exactly the point I'm disputing. The fact that the dollar remains the global reserve currency (though far less than it used to be!) is considered the only relevant metric by which to assess the state of the world and irrefutable proof that every single action the US or any other actor takes will, no matter what, lead to a strengthening of the US's global hegemon status. Nothing else is factored into that faction's evaluation.
yeah it's a bit like the inverse of the "this is good for bitcoin" brain.
"this is bad for communism and the global south" was just their mantra about every single thing that happened
The Dollar is Exodia, the Sword of Damocles, and the Janus Key to continued US victory, even if the returns shrink every time it's power is used