Image is of a colectivo: an armed group, usually operating in impoverished areas, which act to support and defend the socialist government of Venezuela. They are often derided as vigilante terrorist groups which prop up the government, because cops are only bad when they are socialist and not murdering minorities, I suppose.
Maduro’s party, the PSUV, has won the election after a staggering amount of propaganda by the opposition, who said their polls suggested they were going to win and that Maduro’s loss was inevitable. The reaction across Latin America is what one would expect. Left-leaning leaders are generally respecting the results and congratulating Maduro, while those on the right and/or are US puppets (such as in semirecently-couped Peru) are calling for recounts, or even that the election was illegitimate. The US itself is also unhappy about the results. We shall soon see if their unhappiness boils over into yet another coup attempt.
Personally, I think they should have ran Guaido again.
Thank you to @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net for the election coverage here, and everything else they do in the news megathread.
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 Venezuela! 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.
yeah, for that reason, Iran will be at a pretty big disadvantage if a war with Israel starts. they could drop a nuke on a city and the Iranian leadership will vow a response that is beyond anything that the Israelis could ever dream of, a fifty-page manifesto filled with threats, and then radio silence until 56 days later once Iran has sent the appropriate letters with the necessary stampage to every American embassy in the region politely asking permission to fire 10 missiles at an Israeli airbase
I’ve talked before about this problem the anti-American side around the world seems to possess where their threats are never backed up by anything substantive or with necessary speed, as if it takes their military councils a full month to do the paperwork or something. I don’t even dislike their strategies, Russia’s done a good job fighting Ukraine and Hamas and Hezbollah and Yemen’s performance against Israel has been beyond my expectations, it’s just whenever one of them makes a threat and vows imminent revenge, I literally audibly sigh at this point, because I know we ain’t seeing shit for a week at least. I understand why they have to make these statements, not responding at all would be an even greater disaster than a meagre threat, but I wish they’d temper them a little bit to dampen expectations.
It’s kind of a problem in a narrative/propaganda sense, too: the Israelis will 1) bomb a target in Yemen/Lebanon/Iran and claim it was a response rather than an aggression, 2) nothing will happen in response for a long while, 3) response finally comes, previous event has been forgotten by media 4) thus it can be sold as an aggressive action rather than a response, and so Israel can more plausibly claim they’re merely responding. Repeat over and over. The US and Israelis might be losing materially, but at least their responses don’t seem to get lost in transit for ages. If they vow a response, you can be pretty sure bombs will be dropping within 24 hours, with a few exceptions.
So yeah. Not critiquing the overall strategy, the anti-hegemonic side is doing about as good a job as I could hope given the conditions, but please get better propaganda departments and make sure the orders to fire missiles aren’t getting misplaced as much. If Xi or Kim Jong Un or Putin or anybody needs an english-language propagandist then I’m available and have mediocre photoshop skills
I generally agree with your post, but I don’t think this matters as much. Western media would adjust if the responses were quicker. Like when the NYT reported about how horrible and anti-Semitic the campus protests over the mass graves were before they reported anything about the mass graves themselves.
on a good day theyre the responsible adults in the room, bad day theyre incompetent cowards
perhaps they are just responsible cowards
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yeah, I think this is the key fact that is keeping Hezbollah and others from fully engaging. they’ll be forced to respond if Israel invades Lebanon but it still feels like both sides are doing little aggressive actions in order to goad the other. such a reality cannot exist forever, either there will be a peace eventually (which seems more-or-less synonymous with “every single Gazan has died” at this point), one side will run out of ammo/soldiers/vehicles, or there will be a political collapse. But the current situation on the Lebanese border could easily last years if Gaza wasn’t an important issue, and even now I don’t think Israel wants to be the one to march in unprovoked. The deadline for the war beginning being continuously pushed back indicates that Israel (even aided by the US) is very nervous about Hezbollah’s capabilities even as Hezbollah is nervous about Israel’s.
one wonders if the Resistance is hoping for a South Africa-esque collapse before a hot war begins so as to avoid the use of nuclear weapons. it’s certainly possible but the sanctions on South Africa were the real killing blow there, whereas here, without a Mediterranean blockade of Israel, a similar killing blow is unavailable.
You have to understand. It is in the benefit of the enemy for a war to be fast. Long wars and long waits are it’s weakness. This is one of the main principles General Vo Nguyen Giap talked about extensively in his autobiography about defeating US occupation of Vietnam. Patience and persistance.
The same principle applies today. Have faith comrade that the greatest military minds in the world today are plotting the best plots. And that they have not and will not abandon the brave people of Falastin.
Russia has been pretty good about its response time since mid 2022. Its just gotten a bit hard to pick the response noise out of the background levels of the war.