Image is of the Preah Vihear Temple on the Cambodian border. Image sourced from the UNESCO World Heritage website.
Over the last few days, Thailand and Cambodia entered into a heightened stage of conflict due to a long-running border dispute. Like many problems on this planet, Europeans are ultimately to blame - specifically France. Certain sections of the border drawn up by France about a century ago were not fully agreed upon by both sides, with the ownership of some Khmer temples being the most visible points of disagreement.
Despite interventions in favor of Cambodia in the 1960s and later 2010s by the ICJ - one of the mainly mostly useless global institutions that liberals periodically disown - the border conflict has simmered at a generally low level. Of the two countries, Thailand is significantly more militarily and economically powerful.
Last Wednesday, a Thai soldier lost his leg by stepping on a landmine, prompting a rapid escalation between Cambodia and Thailand that has since resulted in dozens of deaths and tens of thousands displaced. Cambodia was willing to come to the negotiating table fairly quickly, but Thailand was more hesitant. International pressure on the two countries by Malaysia, China, and the United States eventually forced Thailand to the table, and they have recently agreed to an immediate ceasefire courtesy of ASEAN.
Notably, Trump refused to hold trade talks with either country until they agreed to peace, which suggests that he really wants a Nobel Peace Prize - which he seems a shoe-in for given that he's met the two most important requirements that several Nobel Peace Prize recipients have needed to meet in the past, which are: 1) start at least one war, and 2) accelerate the genocide of millions of people as billions more people watch on. His policies vis-a-vis ICE creating a domestic terror regime only further increase his chances of winning the prize.
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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.
So the trade "deal" between the EU and the United States is naked capitulation, no doubt about it. America gets 15% tariffs on goods coming from the EU, the EU drops tariffs entirely on American goods like cars, and pledges to spend hundreds of billions on American weaponry (which it was already doing because of Trump's "5% of GDP" NATO push earlier in the year) and some other hundreds of billions on undefined "American investments." But surprise surprise, this "deal" was negotiated between Trump and von der Leyen, the ostensible "head" of the EU but not the head of any one nation state, and she basically just admitted that that $600 billion investment the "EU" is promising is just smoke and mirrors.
So basically, like the deal with Japan, the EU is "promising" to invest a shit ton of money but there's no mechanism to ensure or even outline that investment, and I would be shocked if it ends up investing even a fraction of that outside of the existing arms deals. Obviously a capitulation to their imperial overlords, but perhaps not as bad as the deal initially looked.
Per https://www.politico.eu/article/eus-600bn-us-investment-will-come-exclusively-from-private-sector/
literally can't do shit under capitalism without begging and cajoling private porkies to do it, can't even surrender and pay tribute, that's fucking hilarious
any vassal state operating after 1993 can't even just exist under the imperial thumb... all they know is begging porky, austerity, failed bloc-wide bond issuances, multilateral summit to accomplish plans of a one-way ceasefire for a war they're not even the primary actors in, eat hot chip, & lie
The one way ceasefire for a war you are not even fighting in was one of the most bizzare political moves I have ever seen. Onion level comedy.
The US-imperialist system of finance capital accumulation is in such a catastrophically deep crisis and there is no way out which is why Capital is hellbent on exterminating as many people as possible to wrest back control.
Nina Farnia just wrote an article on it.
https://www.cunylawreview.org/the-architecture-of-u-s-fascism-part-i/
This stresses me out so much, knowing that we’re now tied to arms deals that will dismantle our whole healthcare system that I’m dependent on. Fuck.
I still can’t believe how quickly the EU just capitulated to that 5% and that there was almost no resistance from the ground up.
There could be no resistance to it once much of the European "left" decided that the nazis in Ukraine are heros that must be protected no matter the cost. The continent has sunk itself in a pit of reaction similar to the situation during the inter-imperialist war 110 years ago.
I have to imagine a lot of the acquiescence to 5% is just kicking the can down the road. Arms spending is for sure going up, and austerity is already baked in, but they have to meet 5% by 2035, at which point Trump will be a distant dream. No way is Spain, for example, actually going to spend 5% of GDP on arms to "defend against Russia" which has absolutely no interest in doing anything to Spain.
In The Netherlands our education and healthcare systems are currently being dismantled as a direct result of military investments.
Many such cases unfortunately. I can only hope the dismantling of the welfare state will encourage some sort of reaction from the currently politically disenfranchised who have no interest in fascism, but who knows if it'll go that way at all.
Possibly liquidation of European assets to pay for that, depending on what the actual negotiation terms are.
It’s Shock Therapy all over again, what Europe and the US did to the post-Soviet states in the 90s. But this time the EU will have a taste of its own medicine.
I have a feeling it's very similar to the Japanese trade agreement (see here: https://archive.is/IcNsO) where most of that "investment" will be via loans, if they ever materialize at all. Getting 15% tariffs on your goods in exchange for dropping all tariffs on many American goods is the real victory for the Americans here, as well as the arms deal. I see this ~$600 billion additional investments as just hand waving to give Trump a better headline. The EU is already undergoing austerity to pay for their imperial tribute in the form of 5% GDP military outlays to meet NATO requirements.
The EU is institutionally set up to shock therapy themselves. Imagine Japan except they can't run deficits
Would be really funny if these deals are specifically designed to be broken in order to free the US from their defensive obligations. (I doubt it, though)