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.
Vietnam seeks 3-month delay on tariffs for negotiations
spoiler
Vietnam’s trade ministry has asked the Trump administration to put on hold its planned 46% tariff on imported Vietnamese products and engage in further negotiations. The trade ministry made the request in a diplomatic note soon after President Donald Trump announced a minimum 10% import duty on all exporters to the US and additional duties on about 60 nations. Vietnam was hit with one of the largest “reciprocal” tariffs.
The ministry seeks a phone call between Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer “as soon as possible,” according to a statement on the government’s website.
There is still “room for discussion and negotiation,” according to the statement, which cited Ta Hoang Linh, head of the ministry’s foreign market development department. Vietnamese goods exported to the US mainly compete with those from other countries, not American products, Linh said.
Vietnam planned to dispatch another delegation to the US this weekend led by Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc. “Vietnam regrets the United States’ decision to impose reciprocal duties on Vietnamese exports to the US,” foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said in a statement responding to Bloomberg’s questions.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, who on Thursday said the tariff is “not in line with the good relationship between the two countries,” ordered a task force be set up to provide a quick response. The new tax from the US, Vietnam’s largest export market, could significantly dent the nation’s ambitious goal of boosting growth to at least 8% this year. Chinh said the growth target remains unchanged for now.
According to the most recent report of the US Trade Representative Office, the average import tax rate of Vietnam’s tariffs is 9.4%, major US products exported to Vietnam are subject to import tax rates of 15% or lower, so in fact, Vietnam’s taxable products are much lower than the calculated 90% or 46%, Vietnam’s finance ministry said on its website.
“We know that there will be continued dialog and negotiation,” Adam Sitkoff, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi, said at an event on Thursday. If countries can “find a way to make a deal with President Trump, then I think that you’ll see changes,” he added.
And there’s the first surrender, this was the whole point of Trump’s tariffs, maximizing US bargaining power
What are they giving up here that counts as surrender to you?
We’ll see what they gave up once the “negotiations” end, for now they’re just signaling to Trump that they’re willing to play ball
So what’s the alternative? They’re buying time. They’re also coordinating meetings with China and the EU on how to respond, so who are they playing ball with there?
Trump is a dumbass who doesn’t know the difference between signal and reality, as Sheinbaum regularly demonstrates.
the alternative is counter-tariffs and uniting as a trade bloc with the rest of the world against the USA. That would require a painful de-coupling by Vietnam, but that’s inevitable and going to happen one way or the other regardless since they tied themselves to the sinking ship. Previous horrible trade policy coming back to haunt them
well certainly no reason to think think that
If Sheinbaum had waited until April to start “signaling” then yes we could call that a surrender, but she was proactive and got ahead of Trump’s bullshit
The Vietnamese on the otherhand are clearly wrong-footed by this and as a result are signaling concession rather than time-buying
It all depends on what Trump demands from them, but it’s clear Vietnam is coming to the negotiating table from a position of real weakness and not perceived weakness like with Sheinbaum
It’s a little disappointing but it also seems like an obvious move from Vietnam - drop a small tariff on whatever they import from the US in exchange for what amounts to a much larger payoff and the security of being the first to defect in the prisoner’s dilemma. I wonder how China will react.
payoff? Trump will keep threatening tarriffs forever and get whatever he wants. All Vietnam is doing is surrendering their sovereignty.
Vietnam surrendered their sovereignty in this regard the moment they signed up for this “China+1” nonsense after the first Trump term tarrifs, and made a third of their GDP dependent on exports to the United States, taking in manufacturing from Apple, Nike, Canon, Intel, etc, with no real backup plan. If you invite the oligopolies to do business in your country during the death of neoliberalism for a quick boost to the economy, the end result is expected.
So many countries are just straight up screwed. Even worse for some (like South Africa), their whole plan is to essentially be bailed out by the EU given current US hostilities. Talk about attaching oneself to a sinking ship.
It’s a Faustian bargain but the Vietnamese government is probably more motivated to avoid the consequences of a recession. If all that takes is dropping a relatively small tax on what amounts to 4% of their total imports because Trump is an idiot who doesn’t know how to achieve his own goals, they’d probably take that deal. Guess we’ll see how the negotiations play out.
it works until next month when Trump does it again, and extracts more concessions. Then he continues to do it, forever. Vietnam loses all sovereignty and surrenders without a fight. Truly pathetic.
Yes, the gamble Vietnam is probably making is that they might be able to get off lightly on the concessions because the Trump admin was so economically illiterate they had to come up with their policy by ChatGPT. They haven’t agreed to anything yet.
giving concessions for “sanction relief” or "tarriff relief’ is surrender. You are giving up something for nothing, caving to a threat. the perfidious west will never stop, they will keep up maximum pressure and threats forever. It’s that simple.
Countries will not stop surrendering until there is a valid and strong enough alternative, which China seemingly refused to do with BRICS+
don’t act like this is entirely China’s fault. Vietnam has played footsies with the West and let themselves be economically dominated and colonized to the extent that the Vietnam War was irrelevant and fought for nothing
A bit harsh. Yet my statement is still true, smaller countries will only disregard the us when there is an alternative global economic system.
Vietnam is one of the most if not the most exposed markets to Tarrifs and got hit with some of the highest rates and dont have many levers of counter pressure.For a country like Vietnam this shit is pretty apocalyptic so their response would always would have been meek at best. You cant extrapolate general response cause its THE extreme case and nothing even happened yet