Image (of a Jamaat e-Islami campaign rally) and much of the information below is sourced from here and here.
In 2024, the government of Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League, was overthrown in a student-led protest movement which was boosted by US interests. In the interim, Nobel laureate and dyed-in-the-wool neoliberal Muhammad Yunus was made president, and introduced a series of economic and political reforms (e.g. IMF packages and banking sector restructuring) which have sidelined the working class and aligned the country with US financial interests. Regardless of anybody's personal feelings towards Hasina (who did indeed make many mistakes and caused many deaths), it is now very clear that the reason why Hasina was overthrown was not due to a humanitarian, anti-authoritarian impulse, but because Bangladesh had at least some measure of sovereignty while she was in power, as she accepted Chinese infrastructure investments. Certainly, the US is perfectly comfortable with genocidal dictators if they are allied with US interests.
Last week, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party won over two thirds of parliamentary seats - the Awami League was banned from participating at all, and worker-aligned parties were either disallowed or decided to withdraw from participating due to repression. I haven't personally been able to nail down what exact economic/foreign policies they want to introduce, but because of what Yunus has set up in the interim, it might not matter that much - the economic stage has been set such that no matter what party took power, they would have to accept a fait accompli. As Vijay Prashad put it, the competition between the parties is reduced to "which faction will administer austerity"?
One of the many upsetting aspects of this election was that the student movement that helped overthrown Hasina have been forced into irrelevance, despite their legitimate grievances. The "Gen Z" protestors, displeased by the prospect of being ruled by the BNP about as much as the Awami League, found themselves with odd bedfellows, and allied with the now-opposition party (the hardline Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami). They are now in a tough bind, lacking much of the necessary left-wing organization to assert a genuine political project.
This is an instructive moment for many people who are desperate for better conditions in countries that are economically struggling, including Iran with its recent protests. If your country has sovereignty from the US, you walk a very dangerous tightrope - how do you organize for better conditions in such a way that it cannot be co-opted by the US to overthrow your government and put something even more terrible in its wake? Shortly after a jubilant revolutionary moment, you are left without influence, power, or even media representation, and now yet further under the repression of Western imperialism. This is one of the many problems that the population of the non-NATO world will need to find ways to overcome.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
A photographer managed to snap some very detailed pictures of the specialised F-16CJ suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) aircraft from the South Carolina Air National Guard at Lajes a few days ago, before heading to the Middle East. These have been outfitted with some quite specialised equipment not seen before on combat deployed F-16CJs. These aren't your ordinary F-16s, or even your ordinary F-16CJs. Very specialised equipment is being deployed. If you don't want to read further that's all you need to know, very specialised equipment being moved to the Middle East.
Source for photographs
First thing that's visually apparent is the dark grey colour and canopy tint. This is from the Have Glass V/Upgraded Have Glass radar signature reduction treatment applied to some F-16s. This consists of a radar absorbent material (RAM) coating applied to the aircraft, similar to the F-35, which is why it's the same colour as an F-35. There is also a canopy film and coating of the radome and edge treatment to reduce radar return, which is why the canopy has that tint, and the radome and leading edges of the intake, wings and vertical stabiliser are a lighter colour. While it's not "stealth", all this helps reduce the radar cross section (RCS) substantially, especially from a head on angle.
Another unique piece of equipment is the Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) pod on the centerline of the aircraft. Gone is the usual AN/ALQ-184 pod. It's been replaced with what's known as the "Angry Kitten" ECM pod. This is the first time I've seen these on US F-16CJs on a forward/combat deployment. Angry Kitten was an ECM pod for aggressor squadrons (the planes and pilots that pretend to be the enemy in training), designed to incorporate all the features of the AN/ALQ-167 pod and AN/ULQ-21 countermeasures set in a more modular package to quickly simulate ECM and electronic counter countermeasures (ECCM) capabilities of US adversaries. It appears to have been so good at that, now the US wants to use it in combat, for the first time. Angry Kitten has the same external appearance as the AN/ALQ-167, and while the AN/ALQ-167 has been used in combat before, it had many different variants with different features. Angry Kitten incorporates all of that in one solution, no need for dozens of variants of the AN/ALQ-167 incorporating different combinations of modules of the AN/ULQ-21. Now it's just one pod that can incorporate and switch out all the different modules in the field. And if you look at all the different features the AN/ULQ-21 has on offer, it allows for a wide variety of options for one pod. Frequency range from 0.4-18GHz, with some functionality at 36GHz, false target generation, repeater jamming, noise jamming, and dozens of ECM/ECCM modes and exponential combinations of those modes.
AN/ALQ-167
The combination of the RCS reduction of Have Glass V, and the features of the Angry Kitten ECM pod make for a potent and capable SEAD platform that should not be underestimated, even if it's not a 5th generation stealth aircraft. Iran has a high quantity older air defence systems (HAWK/SA-2/Kub) that would be very deadly otherwise. Just one example is false target generation. Generate a false target with a much bigger radar return than the Have Glass treated F-16CJ, this baits out an air defence system to fire at it, it's location is then known by every aircraft in the vicinity and it can be spot jammed or fired upon. This is a very simplistic and most likely incorrect hypothetical. But it just shows how complex the modern battlefield is, and how control of the electromagnetic spectrum is critical.