Image is of Azerbaijan's President, Aliyev (left) and Armenia's President, Pashinyan (right) in a meeting a month or two after Azerbaijan took Nagorno-Karabakh.
- Never go to a second location.
- Always get the interior ministry post.
- Never get in a helicopter or any small aircraft.
- If someone with a gun enters your car, they’re gonna kill you.
- If someone tells you they’re not going to kill you, they’re calming you down to kill you later.
- Never give up your nukes.
- Never release the opposition's political prisoners.
- Never let the opposition delay elections.
- If someone starts to get into German runes, drop them.
- Never trust a South American with a German name.
- Never move anywhere for a religion.
- Never go into the sewers unless you’re a sewer guy.
- If someone’s trying to get you to commit a crime, they're FBI (sometimes CIA or military intelligence).
- Never become an FBI informant.
- If you do become an FBI informant, record everything.
- Never relinquish your arms.
- Always get it in writing.
- If you keep gambling, you’ll eventually win.
- Never talk to cops without a lawyer.
- Always pay your mercenaries.
- Don’t let anyone take your passport.
To add an addendum to rule 3, never put your President and Foreign Minister in the same helicopter or small aircraft. Especially if doing so in bad weather conditions. Especially if you're already under threat from a hostile nuclear power in the region with a proclivity for terrorism (though this probably isn't Israel's doing, in this particular case).
Anyway, Azerbaijan. Not a great country, I think. Did some genocides. They're a petrostate that is hosting Cop29, which I suppose is a way for the bourgeoisie to implicitly convey their contempt for the green movement. They got weapons from Israel, too.
Just for the record, there's an Iranian province called East Azerbaijan, which is not the same as Azerbaijan.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Azerbaijan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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.
Define “deeply right wing”.
Did you know Iran has a public holiday celebrating the nationalization of their oil industry from UK/US imperialists?
Do you know that the Iranian constitution protects the welfare of it’s citizens and guarantees free healthcare and education?
Because communists can never make any major mistakes, could never host opportunists and collaborators, could never become divorced from the masses, especially in the Islamic world.
I implore people who perpetuate the perception that Iran as “deeply right wing” take this logic to it’s final conclusions - by that standard, which Islamic country is not “deeply right wing”?
May aswell sentence every Islamic country as backward rightwing shitholes. Since apparently the Iranian Revolution - one of the most progressive Islamic mass movements in modern history - is right wing.
We muslims, instead, need to listen to the Communists who could not even organise the members of their own book club, let alone the masses!
No dialectics, just aesthetics - with an inbuilt victim complex to boot.
(Note I realise after typing this comment it seems I am being very antagonistic to the OP in particular, but I am not. It’s just a trend and sentiment I noticed that permeates a lot of discourse surrounding Iran and communism in the Islamic world more generally that I feel like needs to be addressed. I hold no ill-will to OP or anyone in particular that has fallen into Western propaganda.)
I completely agree, though I don't know if I would say the Iranian Communists from the revolution couldn't organize a book club. They fought like hell in overthrowing the Shah. It is crazy to dismiss progressive national movements for being anti-communist, but I am not sure I would be as harsh towards the Tudeh party and their martyrs. Other leftists didn't give support, but Tudeh did and their suppression in the early 80s is not their fault. The British even assisted the government in suppressing and torturing the arrested party members.
It is not as clear cut as op wants to think, but it is also not as clear cut the other way. Lot like Nasser in that regard. And to be clear op is wrong and we shouldn't be celebrating Raisi dying. This benefits no one but the enemies of the Palestine and the global south
There are conflicting viewpoints on this from what I have read. I am not an expert in Iranian affairs so I’ll leave it to the historians and the Iranian people to sort out the details.
That’s the point I was trying to make. This obsession and fixation of other countries’ political histories without humility and understanding of the global dynamics at play.
I could write a long essay about the communist party in my own country whose first leader was a triple agent of both the japanese imperialists and british colonizers. This nuance, although accurate, is irrelevant when discussing 21st century politics. There’s a reason why I never mentioned it in my previous comments covering southeast asian history.
The Tudeh party had relevance, back in 70s and 80s but not now. It really is a joke to discuss it now, like Iran is singlehandedly upholding the global capitalist system, and also when many muslims in the Global South deeply respect Iran and their president.
From what I see, many of Iran’s ills are directly because of Western sanctions and interventions. Not to mention the very tangible, material gains that the Iranian revolution had facilitated up to the present day, internally, and externally through the Axis of Resistance.
Why discuss something in public that will just play into anti-communist, or in this case imperialist, propaganda? Why distract ourselves from the important issue of US imperialism? What did Iran do to capture the heart of so many “well-meaning” westerners that they froth at their mouth at a slight mention of Iran?
We should be discussing these things when brought up in good faith in an echo chamber, like hexbear. It will be unproductive to focus on in in more formal settings where organizing and policy comes into place. Much like Hamas, we should be discussing their merits and failures here because most people here aren't fast to jump on some CIA bandwagon, but in real life you'll be wasting your breath trying to "distance" yourself from Hamas because the government already considers you a terrorist for opening your mouth about Israel, so it's better to spend that energy elsewhere.
The reason I mention Tudeh is because those are the communists op was mentioning, not current communists in Iran. It is silly to bring it up in this context, but I don't see the reason in trashing the Tudeh of the 80s in order to tell someone off for being a chauvinist, or juxtapose sympathy with Tudeh with support for the US. They are wrong, and the suppression of the communists following the Revolution was bad. I think ops comment was silly and baiting, but I just generally don't like being flippant about dead communists or putting the onus on them being out of touch with the masses being why they got tortured and killed by reactionaries just because Iran is a positive force in the global south.
Yeah we shouldn't be bothering with this matter right now, but that's why I settle for call it bait or sticking to the context of today, not dismissing or trivializing the killing of committed communists within living memory. Also again they are in the wrong, but I wouldn't call this public. A naive comment like that is a symptom of imperialist propaganda for sure, but I just think the critique should be kept to why we shouldn't be celebrating, not anything that could be construed as defending or obfuscating the killing of communists. They are wrong to bring up the Communists killed after the revolution when Raisi is not even cold yet, but I personally would recommend not litigating the worth of said communists in response.
This is all meant for the sake of discussing how we approach naivety from fellow leftists, not meant as an insult or serious criticism in any way. I share your distain for the sentiment in question, I just want to make clear in good faith what I think was overly harsh.
Also what country's communist party are you talking about if you don't mind me asking? That sounds wild
I think we are mostly in agreement here. I don’t see the need to continue the conversation.
It’s the Communist Party of Malaya. Be warned though, the history of the party is incredibly sad from start to finish. Sad in a “it could be so much more” kind of way, that is.
I'm not super up to the minute on Iranian politics but this is not something to mindlessly celebrate because "dead billionaire lol" when Iran is in the midst of getting closer to Saudi Arabia and peeling them away from normalization with Israel in the process
This is a good post that adds context to the relationship between the left and the Iranian government. The only thing I would note is that we don't really know who this benefits right now, if anyone. Part of what makes assassinations complicated, especially of government figures, is that it can be hard to tell what will happen in the power vacuum created. Lots of assassinations backfire because the perpatrators either don't do enough work to figure out who is going to replace their target or they get it wrong. Political assassinations are almost more about knowing who is going to take control in the aftermath than actually pulling off the assassination. It's possible that someone even more hard-line than Raisi takes his place on a permanent basis.
Many of the statements and actions are pretty right wing. For example, holding a holocaust denial conference a while back. However, I'm not knowledgeable about Iranian government like you (I just take what the Iranian government says at face value and don't really look too deeply into it), so it could be a subsection of the country, I don't know. Or how they mandate hijabs - this could be because the country is religious, but the west claims that most Iranians are against a mandate. I will say that while browsing the English wikipedia page for Iran, I was very surprised to see photos of Iranian women in modern day Iran dressing in typical western clothing; the western media only ever shows women in full body garbs. I'd like to learn more about what the reality is
edit: i've looked up some traveler's guides to Iran who talk about the reality of women's fashion there, and it seems that generally speaking, women can wear basically whatever they want as long as they cover their hair with a hijab, and the extent of said covering is not as strict as other conservative muslim countries