Image is of Trump's initial set of reciprocal tariffs. Source is CNN and Reuters.
It's difficult to keep up with the news around the tariffs; they get instated, then dropped, then reinstated... for example, on Friday, Trump said that certain electronics like smartphones would be exempt, causing markets to rally a great deal, but now the Commerce Secretary has said that they might not be exempt? The state of play right now, if you haven't been keeping up this week, is that the US recently announced a 90-day global pause on implementing the tariffs he had planned (that is, 25% on certain Canadian and Mexican goods, and at least 10% on every other nation) but nonetheless increased tariffs on China to 145%.
Meanwhile, China has been - quite remarkably - standing their ground, increasing tariffs on the US to 125%, and putting restrictions on rare earths. Xi Jinping has been in Vietnam and has made statements against a tariff war there, saying that it would have no winners. Meanwhile, a Chinese spokesperson has essentially said that China can endure the tariff war due to the increasing demand from its domestic market in combination with its growing economic ties with other countries.
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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.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson regarding the ongoing talks with the US:
Imagine the US negotiating in bad faith, shock and horror, hopefully the liberals in Iran can be conflvinced if the futility of this
Liberals in Iran just keep walking back into the rake, over and over forever. Once must imagine they love the rake
This comes after a meeting between Waltz, Vance, Rubio and Witkoff on the issue. Witkoff and Vance were happy with the initial negotiations just around nuclear weapons and uranium enrichment. Waltz and Rubio wanted a more hardline stance. So now there's a new proposal by the US, a compromise between the Vance-Witkoff camp and the Rubio-Waltz camp. Restrictions on uranium enrichment levels at 3.67% (Iran is currently at 60%), and monitoring of the Iranian missile program, in terms of the amount of missiles Iran has and their various ranges and configurations and capabilities, as well as monitoring the warhead design with respect to to what would cause Iran to design a potential nuclear warhead. Negotiation second round also moved from Italy back to Oman, in essence restarting negotiations from square one.
As for the spokespersons comments, Iran would have to be extremely naive to not expect the US to push the envelope here, given the current US military buildup in the Middle East region. All is fair in love and war.
This is not a typo?
No it's not a typo, JCPOA terms (previous nuclear deal) state that the maximum allowed enrichment is 3.67% for civilian use. Back when JCPOA was first signed, Iran had stockpiles around 20%. Witkoff mentioned the 3.67% number in a recent Fox News interview. And yes, as part of Iran's "negotiation strategy" in anticipating Trump 2, and after Operation True Promise II failed to deter an Israeli attack on Iran (which Iran still has not responded to militarily), Iran started the testing of longer range ballistic missiles, along with enriching uranium to 60% levels for some of their stockpiles. This is why we are in the current situation now.
Witkoff's comments to Fox News:
Trump’s admin keeps doing this, splitting the difference between the neocon faction and the realist/isolationist faction. They are doing this in regards to Ukraine negotiations too, with constant waffling between a “unconditional ceasefire” (the neocon demand) and “Istanbul plus” (the realist agreement that Russia could entertain).
In the end, if Trump can’t get his neocons into line and make a decisive move into the realist camp he’s just gonna be Biden 2.0. A warmongering imperialist who failed to achieve peace and continued dragging out and escalating the conflicts.
He needs to give supreme foreign policy authority to Witkoff and tell Waltz, Kellog and Rubio to eat shit
There seems to be some miscommunication in their diplomacy. In america every deal must be explained in terms of burgers. Explaining in terms of football, and not the football they're thinking of, will only confuse the western brain