Image of destruction in Mandalay, Myanmar, from Al Jazeera.
As if the ongoing civil war wasn’t enough, Myanmar has now been struck by a very powerful earthquake, resulting in 2000 deaths and thousands more injured as of the time of writing. Estimates are that the death toll could reach 10,000. Infrastructure like roads and bridges are damaged, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. The earthquake struck during Eid prayers, resulting in even higher casualties as several mosques collapsed. 20 million people already required humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, and now the situation there will be even worse. International rescue teams have rushed into the country, and aid is being raised, though with USAID experiencing the… changes that it is, the United States will be of even more limited help than usual. So far, China has sent $14 million, while USAID has supplied $2 million. In Thailand, the death toll seems considerably lower, though there has still been significant damage; a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.
Myanmar is located very close to the boundary between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In particular, the country is divided in two by the north-south oriented Sagaing fault. This fault is typically strike-slip; that is, each side of the fault moves horizontally past each other. The earthquake’s depth was 10 kilometers, which is pretty shallow, and its proximity to the surface amplified the felt force of the earthquake. Additionally, the soft soil in this region tends to further amplify seismic waves through a process called liquefaction. Combine all this with the lackluster building codes due to many years of impoverishment and civil wars, and this explains why the death toll, and the expense to the country in general to repair damage, will probably be extremely high.
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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 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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
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.
The point is that centrists consolidating power like this isn’t a good sign and that the only reason we’re beginning to see these mechanisms used against the right is because there is no left
What Macron is doing and what happened in my country where the second round was annulled won’t slow down fascism one bit,and will have severe repercussions down the line
Merely going after right wing figureheads and not creating a left populist alternative won’t fix the problem
Don’t get me wrong,I dislike both her and Georgescu,but I would rather not celebrate too loudly if I celebrated along with pro NATO eurolibs, because this ultimately serves only them and it will do nothing to stop the problem
I agree that it wont stop fascism. At least holding her accountable makes it seem like she actually is a fascist, unlike the Dems crying that Trump is a fascist but also being super soft on him. So I think this is a good thing, even though its clearly not enough. My expectation is there will be another far right figure that will take her place if she can’t run.
they would be delusional to think that fascism is defeated for good just because LePen is barred from running
Do regular people really give a shit about this though?
Will this change any opinions within her voter base?
I can’t call this convenient arrangement “facing accountability” because you just removed a piece off the board,creating a convenient situation for yourself
All it does is create resentment and create a surge in pro fascist sentiment People love an underdog story,and while this is marginally better than the open cowardice of the Democrats,it’s still not to be praised,for the simple fact that people legitimately believe in the nonsense about how liberal democracy is supposed to function and creating situations where the far right comes out as the underdog does nothing but accelerate fascism
My takeaway is that while this is pleasant in the interim,down the line it does nothing but accelerate the rise of fascism
During the interwar period,the Nazi organization of my country,the Iron Guard,created a cult of martyrdom around those killed by the royal regime or locked up in the jails, and now with the arrest of Georgescu I see this sentiment begin to appear again amongst his followers
This is very much a negative,as this doesn’t mean just the hardline neofascists,no,his coalition is made up of a plethora of disaffected voters,both here and abroad,from disillusioned diasporeans to even Ceausescu nostalgists
During last years elections I opted to not vote, because I thought that neither side needed or deserved my vote,but this time I will vote against the next in line of the fascist movement,Simion, who I think is way more savvy than his predecessor
I will vote with a somewhat progressive,pro vest candidate that actually is the mayor of the capital
And yes,you can grill my ass all you want,but there is no greens or PSL or anything of the sort here,no left alternative at all,so you figure that one out
Sure,get her ass for corruption,but let’s not act like what’s going on in the garden right now is anything but the pruning of less esthetically pleasing branches with rotten fruit on them
What the diligent horticulturalists in Brussels won’t accept though is that these branches carry seed laden fruits that will create a whole new crop of flora once they hit the ground,one far more resilient and ruthless than their plant of origin,that will choke out their little floral arrangements and curated lawns, bringing the true jungle back home
Why do you think that’s the case? And why do you think french people would perceive it that way? Back when trump was being lawfared he didn’t look MORE like a fascist he looked like a politician who was being persecuted, and it helped his case about being against the system (a bullet to the ear helped), if anything he got more cred out of it. The only difference with le pen here is that she can’t run now but I’m not sure this hurts her in terms of the number of people who support her
If they let her get away with doing illegal shit, then i’d think that what she’s doing actually isnt illegal. I think banning her would scare more normies from supporting her, as they would think she actually did something bad. I could be wrong, cause I don’t live in France and don’t have a good pulse on the people there.
I think to the average person it looked like Trump was unfairly persecuted because he never actually faced any consequences. And I consider the “average person” as someone that doesn’t follow politics
I think it depends on whether the person views the judicial system, or whatever element is in charge of these prosecutions, as bogus or illegitimate. I don’t think it’s certain at all that it would scare that many people off if they’re already very dissatisfied with the system, also she’s only banned from public office for 5 years so it’s not like this will work forever. Unless they arrest her again in 5 years lol but that would be really blatant.
Also I disagree with that view of how people would react to trump facing jail time, if the party stood by him and he remained the candidate it would’ve been very clear that he was being persecuted.
They do think that.
The French left is electorally comparable to the right, so I don’t know how much that tracks.
Only if you sum up every left of center-right party, Melenchon’s electoral alliance included the former ruling socialists (demons) who regained A LOT of seats and pro-eu greens. That’s the only way they could get that results and capital understands they only need to get the socialists to become the dominant force in that alliance to denute it of the radicalism of melenchon and his party.
Meanwhile the RN is the RN and they get those results on their own. Also, fyi the RN got the most actual votes in the last election, the NFP only won in terms of seats due to an alliance with the center and tactical voting.
So it makes sense why they’d try to lawfare the right since it’s the actual challenge to the centrist estabilishment right now, the fact that centrists accepted voting for NFP candidates against RN candidates is proof of that.
Methinks Macron’s personality is all that the center has right now and they were very scared they wouldn’t have anyone in 2027 to even put up a fight against Le Pen.