Due to American cluster bombing campaigns advised by Kissinger during the Vietnam War to damage supply lines, over 2 million tonnes of ordinance were dropped on Laos over about a decade, averaging a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes. Laos is thus the most bombed country on the planet up to this point. 80 million bombs failed to explode - the cleanup operation is expected to take centuries, and 25,000 people have been killed and injured by bombs in the last 50 years. About 50 people are killed or injured every year to this day.
After the United States withdrew from Laos, the Pathet Lao took power and abolished the monarchy. Kaysone Phomvihane became a dominant figure in Laotian politics, keeping the course on Marxism-Leninism and implementing the first Five Year Plan in 1981. The second Five Year Plan in 1986 was modelled on Lenin's NEP, and this doubled rice production and significantly increased sugar production. After the fall of the USSR, Laos allowed a small capitalist class to exist, with similar control over them as in China. Laos maintains a 48-hour work week with paid sick leave, vacation time, and maternity leave, and workers are well-represented in trade unions. They faired relatively well during coronavirus from a social standpoint due to quick and efficient action to lock down the country, experiencing ~750 deaths out of a population of over 7 million.
There is hope even after utter destruction by genocidal oppressors.
The weekly update is here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Wednesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Friday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Laos! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
Lmaoooooooooooo quite possibly the most deranged article I've read in recent times.
https://archive.is/sw48h
F U L L
S T A L I N
On a daily basis I only achieve Stalin levels of a mere 35%, though I can sometimes reach 47% Stalin if I go all out and time my combos correctly. What is Xi's secret to maxing out the Stalin gauge?
So if you buffer your purge input while you use the big spoon special move, you can actually shave 5 frames off the purge animation due to a bug that the devs decided was actually cool so they hard coded it in there.
Look I'm only at about 75% Stalin on a good day when I'm well rested but I'm always willing to help someone improve
China's Full Stalin will easily defeat the west's 99% Hitler.
Again? I have sworn there were articles like this everytime there are economic readjustments in China
On most days Xi feels Maoist. On his self care days he has more Stalinist vibes
Why don't communists play cards? The dealer has to go full Stalin and purge the deck after every hand.
There are so many parts of this article that are completely insane.
"Xi's imperial court" (lmao)
"ultra-secretive political system" as if they don't literally publish entire books on what they're doing detailing decades of upcoming plans
Claiming a purge is occurring because of Ukraine/Israel (lmaooo)
Claiming "In the minds of many in China, “heart attack in a swimming pool” has the same connotation that “falling out of a window” does for Russian apparatchiks who anger or offend Vladimir Putin."
It's an absolutely batshit insane article and I have no other way to describe it.
Of course it's the same connotation as Russia but not the same connotation as "killed themselves with 2 bullets to the back of the head" is in the US
gosh I can't wait to read Michael Hastings' piece on Xi's purge! oh wait
this orientalist bullshit drives me up a wall. FUCK OFF WHITEY
Do people still talk about the "Imperial Presidency"? in the US? I haven't really heard the term much post-Bush even during Cheeto Maximus' presidency, and Biden and O'bummer are famous do-nothings.
Western chauvinism. Obviously China’s domestic issues can’t be their priority, they must care about the same things us westerners care about since the world revolves around us.
Fighting corruption… in Ukraine!
The CIA’s spies were all killed and the analysts in Langley are all racist, so they can’t recruit enough mandarin speakers to translate documents
I don’t get this lol. China is very open about arresting and/or executing high level politicians and businessmen while Russia prefers deniable assassination. Has there been a prominent case of some Xi’s rival just “dying” in a swimming pool?
Only this one to my knowledge.
I FUCKING WISH
How long before it turns out they were all on a weekend retreat together and no one is missing?
Why does China need to vanish people. They've got a working legal system.