Image (source here) is of a section of the Yarlung Zangbo river, which forms the deepest canyon on the planet.
The idea of doing any sort of general preamble for China is a little absurd given how ubiquitous they are in economics and politics, so I'm just going to hop right in to a recent news item of interest: China is working on the construction of an enormous new hydropower project in Tibet (@Metabola@hexbear.net had brought this up just before the last news mega ended).
This project (consisting of, I believe, five dams) will be overall three times larger than the Three Gorges Dam, will cost $167 billion, and will supply 70 GW (by itself more power than several significant countries generate). There are, of course, meaningful concerns regarding concerning environmental damage, but helping to avert catastrophic climate change seems worth it. The news coming out of the clean energy sector of China has getting only more encouraging over the last few years, even as the fully neoliberalized Europe and America descend into climate skepticism and refuse to adequately fund projects that could avert the worst of climate change.
Geopolitically, given recent India-China tensions (for example, sending Pakistan the equipment to shoot down Indian jets, as well as run-of-the-mill border tensions) one expects India to not receive the news very well, as the river upon which the dam is being constructed proceeds to flow into Arunachal Pradesh. But from what I understand of the Indian hydrological situation (which is, admittedly, not much), I don't think enough of the water in India comes from the river for China to hypothetically cause any kind of water shortages in India - the monsoons seem to supply plenty of freshwater all by themselves. Nonetheless, as with all Chinese news, wild fearmongering abounds.
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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.
Zelensky signed a bill that aims to dismantle "independent" anti-corruption agency and it has western media in a tizzy
The anti-corruption offices are now under the oversight of the prosecutor general who is appointed by Zelensky himself.
There are reports of protests in 7 Ukrainian cities, most seem limited to a few hundred people each. Rumors of planned protests tomorrow.
NABU, one of the anti-corruption offices, was created at request of the IMF, is fully funded by the U.S. and E.U., its existence is a precondition of aid, and it shares intel with the FBI.
It's a very interesting development imo, and the level of western media coverage it's getting makes me think something may be looming. Was a corruption investigation hitting a little close to Zelensky that he needed to stop? Is this his exit strategy? Color revolution? Nothing ever happens? Take your bets!
He banned every opposition party some years ago
Right but now it's authoritarian now that he's doing something opposed to western interests
Not to mention elections themselves.
Apparently it's peak democracy not to have elections because the constitution allows it during a war ~~that most Ukrainians want to end as fast as possible through negotiations but who cares what the plebs want~~
Yeah, obviously it becomes authoritarian when you ban an NGO set up by your patron, the global hegemon, for the purpose of monitoring your behavior and ensuring that it remains aligned with their interests.
my bet is that this is trump being petty (because i believe one of these "anti-corruption" offices was part of the whole ukraine quid pro quo thing or something like that) + wants to be the only one getting in on the corruption in ukraine
Putting my money on color revolution....the chorus of western media suddenly turning anti-Zelensky sells it for me
The West is trying to oust Zelensky but they stupidly haven’t laid the groundwork for it. All Zelensky has to do is accuse western orgs of being “Russian” and people eat that shit up because he’s considered a hero.
It would take six months of propaganda to pull this off smoothly, Zelensky has caught them with their pants down.
That isn’t to say it won’t succeed, but there is no way to accomplish it cleanly in the short term.
Yeah if Zelensky fights his overthrow then it’s going to get messy
one of Hersh "insiders" said they're gonna get rid of him in the next few months apparently
Why would they be trying to oust Zelensky, seems like a stupid time to do that. What exactly is he doing that pisses them off so much?
This seems like major hole in that theory tbh. Maybe he's just consolidating power and some in the West are complaining a bit because he's sacking their lapdogs.