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.
I finished the semester so im making an post about the election is México since i couldnt last week
The mexican presidential election is next week and the current polls have been favorable for Morena's candidate Claudia Sheinbaum with around a 10 point lead over the PAN-PRI-PRD (PRIAN) coalition candidate Xochitl Galvez. And the 3rd candidate for the MC Jorge Álvarez Maynez is sitting around 8-10% but in a few states he gets more votes than Galvez
I missed the 3rd debate last week but in general Galvez still mostly attacked Sheinbaum and didnt answer the reporter questions, while Sheinbaum mostly shared her policy ideas, Maynez was the same.
For a while the PRIAN tried to get Maynez to drop and give support to their candidate using journalists and the leader of the PRI but our sistem doesnt even accept a candidate dropping so votes for him wouldnt even be counted to the PRIAN.
Also the PAN has been trying to use catholicism to criticize Sheinbaum since she is of jewish descent.
There are also governor elections for 8 states and the capital:
in Tabasco the only favorite to win is Morena since thats the state the president is from and he has a lot of support there.
in Yucatan is a really close race between PAN and Morena, PAN support comes mostly from the capital where more that half of the population lives and Morena support comes from the rest of the state
in Chiapas Morena has a 30 point lead, the state currently suffer from a big problem with violent crime that has even affected the zapatistas, Morena's campaign is that only they can pacify the state
in Guanajuato PAN has used all the tools in their disposal to keep their bastion state, it was the only state last election that didnt vote for AMLO and the PAN has ruled over it for 33 years, violence hit its tipping point with the asassination of a Morena candidate and MC has slowly gain support there over the years
in Jalisco MC is the ruling party being one of the 2 states they control, and their candidate Pablo Lemus has had a decent showing in the debates however the governor Alfaro of MC has been dropping in support which has affected Lemus and Morena's candidate has had a very active campaign so its not a decided race yet
in Morelos is a close race between Morena and PRI-PAN-PRD, at the start it was a big lead for Morena but due corruption allegations against the governor it has hurt Morena numbers
in Puebla is an interesting place, the last 2 governors had early deaths and their interim sucessor decided to not run, Morena has a small lead over the PAN candidate running with an ex-senador
in Veracruz some polls have Morena with a 30 points lead and other the PAN with 8 points, this is due to a similar situation as Morelos except this time the Morena candidate has allegations of corruption and has been slowly dropping in support over the last months
So thats how the election is shaping up to be, there is still a week left so things could change. Also the Communist party after decades has decided to run an independent campaign again and i have being following them but i think since they arent registred in the INE they wont get plurinominal representation still if they get enough votes that may change for next election but we will see.
Who are the good guys and bad guys?
there are not good guys that can win the presidency, only the less bad, that being Morena
Kind of a random question, but do you have any good resources on Lázaro Cárdenas? Looking to learn more about his life and how he nationalized Mexican oil, but then lost control over the PRI. I listened to a talk by his son, but he skipped over 1940-1980 and the entire neoliberal turn of the PRI.
only in spanish, this documentary that talks about his sexenio this one that talks about the nationalization of Oil, this one is generic and talks about his life
But basically its important to keep in mind that Cardenas wasnt a, civilian or a normal general like his title implies, he was actually a Warlord and ruled Michoacan as its only leader, this was the norm in post-revolutionary Mexico each state ruled by a warlord as their own personal fiefdom. Eventually via a purge he took over the PNR changing its name to PRM (eventually would be named PRI) and had absolute power over the state.
Cardenas created the political sistem of Mexico via 3 factors (a strong president, a hegemonic party, corporativism), the last one is important because it created big and strong unions that would represent the workers and would cooperate with the state.
The nationalization of Oil happen because it was one of the goals of the mexican revolution but it was delayed many times, during strikes against the oil industry for not paying wages Cardenas told the strikes to take over the oil refineries and then nationalized them, which led to a semi embargo by the USA, but the fame he gain by doing that made him the most popular president.
he lost control of the Party because it was never an ideological party, Its founder Calles made sure the party never really stand for anything except a so called "revolucionary nationalism" which could mean anything, Cardenas was a comunist sympatizer so thats why he helped the workers and the rural folk but everyone else was like liberals and other things which led to the PRI just using his image to legitimized itself while ignoring him, eventually leading to the collapse of the economy due to the oil shock so the neolib faction took over and did the new economic model (neoliberalism) which was continue during the transition to democracy era.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: