Image is of thousands of Cubans gathering in 2026 to honor José Martí.
After the Soviet Union fell, in the 1990s, Cuba entered a period (known as the Special Period) of extreme economic pressure, losing almost all of its international trade and fuel imports. Caloric intake almost halved, and electricity was mostly unavailable for much of the day. In response, Cuba undertook Option Zero, in which the country prioritized distributing resources to the most vulnerable, and rationed what little was available as fairly as possible. During this time, the threat of total collapse led to experiments and innovations, and, paradoxically to those on the outside, Cuba's population came together under pressure, rather than shattering. The collective understanding that their suffering resulted from abroad rather than from internal inefficiencies and corruption meant that Cuba's government, and thus their sovereignty, survived.
As the American Empire contracts in the wake of multipolarity and can now no longer tolerate sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere, we are seeing a return to the time of the Special Period, with the illegal blockade being dramatically worsened - among other measures, the US is preventing all fuel from entering the island, a strategy made more viable with Venezuela's fuel exports now restricted. Imperialist supporters are predicting an imminent collapse, after which American mining corporations would descend on Cuba's massive nickel and cobalt reserves.
While it's absolutely possible that this time Cuba's government could collapse, it's important to note four things: 1) as noted, Cuba has been in a situation like this before and survived; 2) the geopolitical situation is quite different to how it was in the 1990s, with China and other powers increasing in power and influence compared to the USSR's incompetent final leaders leaving the lane wide open to American exploitation; 3) there has been a concerted effort to transition to renewable energy sources recently, with solar panels being imported from China and making up an increasing amount of the energy supply; and 4) Cuba's government is taking this threat very seriously, and beginning rationing efforts immediately.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
This is not to excuse any of the massacres committed by Israel. However, I think facts are important.
None of the explosives/munitions listed in the Al Jazeera article are thermobaric/fuel air explosive weapons. Al Jazeera has got this wrong. Al Jazeera has also misunderstood this quote by Vasily Fatigarov:
To mean:
These are two very different things. Adding additional material to TNT and plastic bonded explosives to increase their explosive power and thus the heat output is not the same as a thermobaric weapon. Most conventional explosives use a pre-mix of fuel and oxygen to produce the explosive effect. Tritonal uses TNT as the self oxidising explosive, with additional aluminium as fuel to increase the heat output and explosive power. Plastic bonded explosive mixtures do similar, usually using RDX as the self oxidising explosive, with additional sources of fuel and/or oxygen mixed in and all held together using the bonding agent. These are the explosives mentioned in the Al Jazeera article, and are not thermobaric/fuel air explosives. A thermobaric weapon is very different. Thermobaric weapons consist of only fuel and rely on oxygen from the surrounding air/atmosphere to produce an explosion once the fuel mix has been dispersed and ignited. Hence the erroneous term "vacuum bomb", as it uses/sucks up the surrounding oxygen. This is also why it's very deadly in enclosed spaces.
As for the most likely thermobaric weapon that Israel has used in Gaza, the AGM-114N MAC Hellfire missile is the most likely. This uses a conventional explosive to disperse a cloud of Teflon coated aluminium, which is then ignited to produce the thermobaric explosion. No oxidiser involved, oxygen from the atmosphere is used. And the aluminium is not used to increase the power of a conventional explosive, the conventional explosive is used to disperse the aluminium which is then ignited. Israel has widely used the AGM-114 in Gaza. However the AGM-114N MAC is a specific variant and it's not known if that specific variant has been used.
Another potential weapon is the BLU-118/B or BLU-118/S 2000lb bomb. This is a BLU-109 body/external casing filled with a thermobaric explosive mix, used on the entrances of tunnels/caves/bunkers. This is how fuel air explosives look when used, if there is any footage like this from Gaza that would be a starting point for an investigation. Israel has widely used the BLU-109 (mentioned in the Al Jazeera article) and it's externally similar to the BLU-118.
Thanks for the clarification, as someone who doesn't know shit about bombs and weapons, I appreciate it a lot!