Image is of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Ansarallah.
The death of Zionism has just massively accelerated.
previous preamble
BRICS has expanded to include Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Argentina is currently experiencing technical difficulties due to the election of the ancap clown Milei - once he's out of office, maybe they can try again.
I don't really have much to say about this one way or another. BRICS has, so far, made only nervous and small steps towards challenging US hegemony. This isn't really that unexpected, as only China and Russia are the real "true believers" in ending US hegemony (and even then, China's government either believes, or is pretending to believe, that reconciliation is still possible). Brazil, India, and South Africa are less enthralled by the concept of dethroning the US, most especially India, who had to make a firm decision in 2023 whether they were going to be on the side of America, or on the side of the Global South, and chose the former, strengthening their military relationship. They're still best of friends with Russia, but they are very obviously the sussy imposter of the BRICS group.
The prospects of BRICS are only really loosely correlated with the prospects of multipolarism, though. It's not a process that hinges on BRICS's successes or failures. It is coming because the contender states (in Desai's terminology) are irreversibly rising, and the US is irreversibly falling. If it will not be BRICS that leads, it will be a different organization. A better world is not only possible, but inevitable - unfortunately for the US.
I'm taking a week off the updates because I've been swamped lately, and also feel the need to reconfigure (and find new) sources. Needless to say that I've grown tired of Financial Times headlines, even if they do represent the actual views of the bourgeoisie.
The Country of the Week is Ethiopia! 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.
https://twitter.com/TimRunsHisMouth/status/1745343078133612603
https://nitter.net/TimRunsHisMouth/status/1745343078133612603
This guy has gone completely off the rails. There is no genocide of white farmers in South Africa. About 60 farmers are murdered a year in the country, usually by criminals. Many of those who are murdered are not even white. Yes this is a major rural security issue, but it is in no way a genocide, not even close.
shout out to the OG Fetterman-haters, take a victory lap we were right all along
I hated him because I hate all American politicians on principle, until they prove otherwise. All I knew about the guy was that he was a big dude and ran against Dr Oz.
the fetterman lovers enjoyed his rhetoric without seeing any proof of bonafides, your approach is the only good one
My approach is also easy because I'm not American. I imagine it's much harder for Americans to have such an apathetic attitude towards their own politicians
You'd think being disappointed over and over would make it easier for Americans to see through the bullshit, but alas
idk, I'm British and I have total apathy towards my own politicians. unless/until Corbyn or somebody at least as left-wing as him is made a party leader, I will never vote in an election again
I was about to get in the car cause someone else was going to vote, and I loath it but I was kinda swaying cause my parents would be voting and they are conservative so that was pissing me off, but as people were getting in the car I look up "Fetterman Palestine" because THAT is my line in the sand. And lo and behold it was an article about him touting how he hated BDS and how most GOP politicians are not as zionist as he is and I was like "nope fuck this guy".
thank god I didn't vote for this shithead
Settlerman, settlerman
Does whatever a settler can
Supports a bomb of any size
Murders journalists just like flies
Look out, here comes the settlerman
As someone who spent a lot of time a decade ago lurking on Stormfront (the real one, not Reddit), any white American or European who whines about white farmers in South Africa or Zimbabwe is a million percent more racist privately than they show in public. I would not be surprised at all if this dude is a straight up white nationalist.
The video isn't completely clear to be fair for this guy, but he should really release some kind of statement. Right wingers will run wild with this nonsense.
If you hear this, run
I met an older South African guy while traveling a few years back and he seemed cool at first. He then started talking about how "it was basically open season on white people in SA" - that's why he was traveling around central America. Didn't take long for him to start telling me how my country (in Scandinavia) was being destroyed by Muslim immigrants.
Lmao someone forgot to tell me, life is perfectly fine as a
here. And I say this as someone that is not rich or anything like that, in fact I'm broke and have no money. Most other white people in South Africa statistically enjoy a much higher standard of living than everyone else thanks to generational wealth accumulated during apartheid.
I remember being, if nothing else, then unsure what to think about the things he was saying (I was a carefree lib in those days, and my racist-radar wasn't as well developed, also knew very little about SA), but once he started spouting vile racist shit about my Muslim countrymen, everything he had said about SA became sus in retrospect.
"Most other white people in South Africa statistically enjoy a much higher standard of living than everyone else thanks to generational wealth accumulated during apartheid"
It's so absurd to me that South Africa is as inequal as it is. How there wasn't a massive campaign of wealth redistribution - by force if necessary - after apartheid fell, but then again admit I don't know the history very well, and I guess it's more complex than that.
It'd be so funny if Settlerman was the American version of Mussolini
starts with vaguely left-wing beliefs, part of the "socialist" bloc in the country, and then rapidly switches sides to become a genocidal fascist
he'll be President in 2032
Settlerman - Always On Camera ticket for the 2032 elections let's go!
.
I mean...
That's just conjecture. He never explains why South Africa should "sit this one out". It could be...
He said something and I swear I heard the word farmer, but it's impossible to fully make out with the random applause.
https://nitter.net/_RichardHall/status/1745532415785791866 His explanation. Fuck Fetterman!
That's a straight-up white supremacist talking point
America has around 70 homicides every day lol
South Africa also has a really high homicide rate amongst the general population, I was just listing farmers only to debunk the genocide talking points.
Damn. I did not realize he was a full on white supremacist reactionary.