Image is from this article, of a Chilean copper quarry.
Title is a reference to Trump's social media post about copper, which was, as usual, mostly deranged.
Trying to follow Trump's administration is pretty difficult, but as of right now, he is threatening 30% tariffs on Mexico and the EU starting on August 1st, as well as new tariff announcements on a bunch of other countries (including, bizarrely, a 50% tariff on Brazil), and also apparently a 50% tariff on copper, which the US imports half its supply of and is, of course, a very important metal in many applications.
I'm not sure what the plan is to bring back domestic copper production beyond hoping that it just sorta works out, but prominent copper producers, such as Chile and Canada, seem both concerned and confused. Reuters had a line that made me chuckle:
Boric said he was awaiting official communication from the U.S. government, including whether the tariffs would include copper cathodes, and questioned "whether this will actually be implemented or not."
Big mood, Boric.
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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.
weird how they didn't learn anything from the previous 50 years of wars
I mean, the Russian plan worked. Ukraine signed the capitulation documents in Istanbul.
Then the west directly intervened and made them back out, promised support and killed the negotiators.
They did. They just learned the wrong things.
Their first assumption was that Ukraine wouldn't fight back because most Russian (and Eastern Ukrianian) civilians consider them to 'brother-peoples'. In that way, they were legitimately able to take Crimea not only without a fight, but also without really any amount of internal resistance. Due to the general corruption of the Ukrianian government, they figured it would basically be the same deal, with them coming in as 'saviors'. In addition to this, they definitely believed the story of Desert Storm "Large mobile convoy with air support is able rush forward quickly to obliterate Iraq's army." without taking into account the two things that actually made it successful (which of course worked in Iraq but not Afghanistan due to the country being far less centralized, this also worked on Libya and Syria and to some extent Iran) which was, sanctions to impoverish the society and wide scale bribery to military officers with promises of clemency in the new administration to abandon their posts.
Russia did not perform sanctions on Ukraine even as they were in the middle of a low scale ethnic civil war, and this were not able to bribe a sufficient number of Ukrianian officers. It especially was not effective as cutouts in the U.S. have been bribing the Ukrianian government and military with funding and weapons for years, with promises of continued support if they sustained their aggressive ethnic policies towards ethnic Russian Ukrainians, and support if conflict ensued (even though no one in the Ukrainian government actually thought they were going to launch an assault on the country). Therefore, it was not, and could not be effective, and Russia fundamentally misunderstood the nature of their relationship with Ukraine.
Also, the US Air Force and Navy invested a ton of money, assets and resources into how to suppress and destroy air defences after taking enormous losses in Vietnam, even building hundreds of specialised aircraft designed just for that mission. The US also invested heavily into stealth aircraft and precision guided munitions. The Soviet Union, and by extension Russia didn't do this (because it was never essential to their military doctrine and it's extremely expensive), which is why over three years into the Ukraine war and despite decimating the Ukrainian Air Force aircraft at the start of the conflict, Russian aircraft rarely cross the line of contact into Ukrainian controlled skies/territory.
"we'll be greeted as liberators" doesnt ever work and especially not when you're fighting the side with the most advanced propaganda apparatus in history
It worked in Crimea less than a decade prior
Crimea is majority Russian and belonged to the RSFR within living memory of a lot of people, though.
that was a very tight and overwhelming operation where the only opposition was next-door to the russian garrison. opposition was completely futile even if you believe the crimeans weren't on board
It was also reported that the US offered evacuation for certain Ukrainians to form a government in exile, which suggests the US also had the view that it would occur