Well, Iran and their allies’ response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren’t talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don’t really know where to look right now.
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 Iraq! 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.
The new Bangladesh interim gov ‘advisory council’ is super sus
Advisory council members
Chief neoliberal parasite, western puppet.
NGO Affiliated
NGO Affiliated
NGO Affiliated
Hefazat-e-Islam is a far right Islamist group
Grameen Telecom was created by Yunus
NGO Affiliated
Who?
Nahid Islam, DU student and key organiser of the Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement
Asif Mahmud, DU student and key organiser of the Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement
Salehuddin Ahmed, former governor of Bangladesh Bank
In 2020, Ahmed was appointed an independent director of ASA International.[11] He is one of the founders of the Centre for Advanced Research and Social Action, non-profit.[12] He is a member of the general committee of the NGO Forum.[13] He is an independent director of GrameenPhone.
Prof Asif Nazrul, Dhaka University law professor
Hasan Arif, former attorney general and adviser of Fakhruddin Ahmed-led caretaker government
Mr. Ariff was a resource person at the Continuing Legal Education Program and Human Rights Training Program of the Bangladesh Bar Council. He is a leading member of the International Business Forum of Bangladesh, a business community platform for advocating policy formulation at the government level.
Hossain was commissioned in the Pakistan Army in 1966 from PMA, Kakul. He joined the Bangladesh Army in 1972 upon that country’s independence.
Supradip Chakma, chairman of Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board (CHTDB)
Prof Bidhan Ranjan Roy, director of the National Institute of Mental Health & Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry
Touhid Hossain, former foreign secretary
In September 2021, Hossain was a guest presented at a seminar on disinformation and reporting for Bangladeshi journalists organized by the United States Agency for International Development. USAID
Thanks for the breakdown Fucky!
Yea, not even a single trade unionist. Some of the NGOs are more sus than others.
deleted by creator
Yea my guess is BNP when elected will be VERY friendly towards the US
The old government also never recognized Israel and was part of belt and road
New government will take IMF loans, cancel B&R projects and recognize Israel - I bet
The ISIS-NGO complex strikes again. Same playbook as the Arab spring and Syria
Damn the CIA didn’t let a good crisis go to waste. They can still be pretty ruthless and effective when the opportunity arises. Can’t wait to read about this again in like 10 years to retrospectively learn how organic the protests were and the exact moment when the vultures were able to swoop in and use it to enforce subservience to the empire.
Seems like their best regime change ops are the ones they didn’t have long-term planning for. Just taking advantage contradictions as they arise in a color revolution.