Image is of a solar park in Cuba, donated last year by China, sourced from this article.
To be honest, I don't have much to say about ongoing geopolitical events that hasn't already been said in previous threads (e.g. with India/Pakistan, Trump/Putin, and of course occupied Palestine), so this is more of a "news roundup" preamble for this week.
As we all know, the US (and the imperial core generally) has only three permitted international actions: sanctions, color revolution, and war. None of these have been going well lately, but sanctions are in particularly dire straits right now. Three examples from the last week or so:
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The EU is on its 17th sanctions package, apparently, which is surprising, as I thought they were on their 76th or something. It apparently targets Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers, but I don't think anybody actually gives a shit because we all know it won't achieve anything, so, moving on...
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The head of Nvidia (as well as many others) have come out and said that the US chip export controls on China have failed, remarking that China's internal motivations to develop alternatives are strong and proceeding rapidly, especially as China's number of skilled scientists is only growing. Nvidia has said that they had a 95% share of China's AI chip market in 2020 or so, but now they only have 50%.
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Lastly, an interesting one: Iran has received its first set of railway shipment of solar panels from China, and there is hope for accelerating shipments of even more products. Myself and many others have predicted a decoupling of Iran from the West and towards China and Russia (especially if any Western-built product could have Israeli devices implanted into them, such as with the pager terrorist attack on Lebanon's doctors), and having a strong link with China will be a necessary step for Iran and their allies to continue their offensives against Israel.
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.
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.
'Syria and Israel share common enemies'
The self-appointed interim President of Syria Ahmed Al-Sharaa says
Ahmed Al-Sharaa during an interview with the Jewish Journal stated that Israel and Syria share “common enemies” and said he is ready to engage with Tel Aviv if there is “a clear path to coexistence.”
“The era of endless tit-for-tat bombings must end. No nation prospers when its skies are filled with fear. The reality is, we have common enemies — and we can play a major role in regional security,” Sharaa, formerly known as Al-Qaeda leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, told the Los Angeles-based publication.
“Peace must be earned through mutual respect, not fear. We will engage where there is honesty and a clear path to coexistence — and walk away from anything less," he added.
Sharaa also voiced support for reviving the principles of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement (Dofa Accord), calling it a possible framework for “mutual restraint and protection of civilians.”
The statements from the de facto president come amid reports in western media saying Israeli and Syrian officials have been engaged in face-to-face talks over recent weeks aimed at “preventing another flareup along their shared border.”
After extremist armed groups led by Sharaa took over Syria in December, Israel promptly destroyed the country's military capabilities and occupied large areas of Syrian territory in the Golan Heights, Quneitra, and Deraa.
“There are indirect talks with Israel through mediators to calm and attempt to absorb the situation so that it does not reach a level that both sides lose control over,” Sharaa said earlier this month, also describing Israel's continued airstrikes of Syrian land as “random interventions."
He also said Damascus was talking to states that communicate with Israel to “pressure them to stop intervening in Syrian affairs and bomb some of its infrastructure.”
I am going to say it: the Arab nation and the ummah have utterly failed the Palestinian people to a level that makes them no longer redeemable. might as well put the blood-stained Zionist banner over the umayyad mosque. where the hell is the ange of the arab masses??
Well its not like they folded instantly, since 1948 there were multiple violent and consistent efforts by the empire to make the region so.
Do y'all like this format?
Yes. We're low on both post quality and quantity lately so keep it coming please.
One of the things I noticed about this site is that people rarely actually read the linked articles. Its a sad state. Perhaps this format will promote more actual reading of the content. Thank you.
Also curse normalizer Jolani and his gang of al Qaeda headchopping lapdogs
btw, small subbear about syria news over the week:
druze-hts "clashes"(tm) continue, and there are still sporadic news of sdf merking some sna fellows, also pisrael hit a couple of sites inside syria again (somewhere on the coast). (also some shit about isis doing/proclaiming something, but too early too tell)
this is fucking hilarious, common enemies
He means Iran and Hezbollah (and of course the Syrian people 🫠)
🫠🫠🫠
average neoliberal wahhabism moment
hey TGF where's the follow-up community post on how Syria is doing?