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.
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A conspiracy theory I believe, even though there’s no hard proof: Stoltenberg is a CIA asset
In his youth he infiltrated leftist anti-US groups then snitched on them, and he’s been working with the CIA ever since
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They’re probably hoping that Russia uses nukes in Ukraine and becomes a global pariah.
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Ali Kadri has written about these concepts too in works such as The Accumulation of Waste - A Political Economy of Systemic Destruction.
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PM Sunak’s unexpected decision comes as the Tories are trailing far behind the Labour Party.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the advancement of the general elections in the United Kingdom to July 4th.
The unexpected decision comes as the Conservatives are trailing far behind the opposition Labour Party, according to all polls, and on the same day it was revealed that inflation dropped to 2.3 percent in April, its lowest level in almost three years.
Sunak informed King Charles III of his intention to call for elections on July 4th, despite having the option to do so anytime before January 28th, the end of the parliamentary term.
After assuring that the United Kingdom has gone through its most challenging period since World War II, Sunak said his administration has focused on restoring economic stability to the country following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I came to government promising economic stability, and thanks to collective effort, we have achieved two milestones: our economy is growing faster than anyone anticipated… and inflation has returned to normal levels. This is proof that our priorities are working,” he added.
In a statement that turned into his first campaign act, Sunak said that the UK will have to choose between his Tories and the Labour Party, which, in his view, “would be like going back to square one.”
This morning, Sunak had reiterated in the government control session in Parliament that his intention was to call the elections in the second half of this year, but did not specify when.
Asked by the leader of the Scottish Nationalists in the House of Commons, Stephen Flynn, about the abundant speculation on an early election, Sunak insisted on his intention to hold the elections in the second half, without clarifying when.
The announcement has taken analysts by surprise, given the 20-point lead that polls give the Labour Party over the Tories, which could be enough to achieve an absolute majority.
Just three weeks ago, municipal elections were held in which the Conservatives had historically low results, losing half of their councilors in the localities where voting took place.
Tories are going to eat shit
Labour is going to win, but they are lead by a bunch of neoliberal ghouls
Unless Labour somehow does the same self-sabotage they did in the 1992 election, they should get a majority with a chance of a supermajority. Too bad they will do barely anything to help the working class.
Mr. President we need to do something, we are losing popular support, we are not signing new trade deals and the IMF is refusing the send us funds. We need to distract the people, shall we order the armed forces to invade the Islands?
No, I have a better idea.
Milei gives musical show, rails against abortion during book launch
The president sang and gave a speech where he called abortion a ‘murderous agenda’
President Javier Milei gave his followers a full show on Wednesday night for the presentation of his latest book Capitalism, Socialism And The Neoclassic Trap. The president gave a fiery speech railing against socialism and abortion — he called the latter a “murderous agenda” — but the headline was the brief musical show where Milei appeared as the frontman of a rock band.
“I am doing this because I wanted to sing,” Milei told around 8,000 of his supporters as he went on stage at the Luna Park stadium in Buenos Aires. “I’ve always done this acapella. Now I wanted to have musicians.”
Dressed in his customary black leather jacket, he sang Panic Show, a song by rock band La Renga that has become an anthem for libertarians in Argentina, despite the band’s opposition. The president frequently sings a part of this song before giving speeches to his supporters.
The band that appeared alongside the president was made up of libertarian deputy Alberto “Bertie” Benegas Lynch, his brother Joaquín, and journalist Marcelo Duclos, co-author of Milei’s biography. After the musical performance, Milei gave an hour-long speech and later joined a panel with presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni and libertarian deputy José Luis Espert.
The event was live streamed on the presidential YouTube channel, but the musical section was left out. The only footage of the moment was taken by people recording on their phones. No professional video equipment was allowed inside, aside from the devices used by the presidential team.
Milei devoted part of his speech to speak about his book, claiming that it provides tools to fight what he calls “21st century socialism.” But he also went against abortion, despite recently saying that overturning legal pregnancy interruption in Argentina is not on his government agenda.
Citing a passage from the Exodus book of the Bible, Milei claimed that abortion was a mechanism the Egyptians used in biblical times to “annihilate Jews.”
“Abortion is an agenda that is over 3,000 years old, and it is completely murderous,” he said.
Milei was initially scheduled to present his book at the Buenos Aires Book Fair on May 12. However, he decided to call it off and do it at the Luna Park stadium on the grounds that he thought the organization would “sabotage” the event. “We need to thank [Book Fair organizers] El Libro Foundation, which gifted us this party with their boycott attempt,” he said on Wednesday night.
Tickets for the event at Luna Park were handed out free of charge. According to the government, the event was funded using earnings from the president’s book. Publisher Planeta announced on Wednesday that Milei had given up the book’s economic rights. The president later explained they were transferred to Distribuidora Belgrano Norte SRL (DBN), a music distribution company that paid for the rental of the stadium.
In recent days, Milei has been accused of plagiarism in his new book. According to an investigation published by Noticias magazine, he allegedly copied exact paragraphs from published works by two Chilean economists and a group of researchers from Argentina’s top publicly-funded research institute, CONICET, as well as a United States website.
“There is no plagiarism of any kind; everything is within intellectual property law,” the presidential spokesman said on Tuesday. Milei has already been accused of plagiarism on previous occasions.
I want our next president to be the most boring ass bureaucrat possible, I’ve had enough of this wild ride (it has just been 6 months).
In other news the regime I’m living under just increased the royal family’s salaries. Draw whatever conclusions you want from that about the difference between Burkina Faso and my country.
As a history fact, Iranian Azerbaijan (which includes the provinces of East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan and Ardebil, sometimes Zanjan province is also included for being majority Azeri) is the OG Azerbaijan, with the modern country of Azerbaijan having historically referred to by other names:
The name Azerbaijan was first adopted for the area of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan by the government of Musavat in 1918, after the collapse of the Russian Empire, when the independent Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was established. Until then, the designation had been used exclusively to identify the adjacent region of contemporary northwestern Iran, while the area of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was formerly referred to as Arran and Shirvan. On that basis Iran protested the newly adopted country name.
Yeah when Azerbaijan got its independence it choose that name specifically because they planned to include iranian Azerbaijan, it was part of the grand turan empire that the young turks wanted to create.
After 9/11, President George W. Bush and his team argued that a nonstate actor like al-Qaeda could not have pulled off the attacks alone, and that some country must have been behind it all. That state, they insisted, was Iraq—and the United States invaded Iraq. In a savage irony, they may have been right after all about state support, but flat wrong about the state. Should we now invade Saudi Arabia? …(of course not)
the taliban also offered to capture and hand over osama bin laden prior to the US invasion, but the Bush admin refused and invaded (and never caught OBL in afghanistan)
The global War on Terror was based on a mistake.
“mistake”
This is old news and not of great importance but it’s a silly little story about the uselessness of liberal western progressivism that I don’t think has been posted here before:
On May 8th the chairperson of the Copenhagen Pride organisation resigned to appease angry corporate sponsors who were cutting funding for the parade.
What angered companies like Google and Mærsk so much was a statement put out back in February by the pride organisation in which they declared that the organisation “stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people” and stated that the organisation would “voice concern over business activities in ‘Israel’ and the occupied Palestinian territories” to their partners.
Sponsors and the liberal establishment were deeply offended by the statement that they saw as a demand for them to take a stand against the genocide. The pride organisation demonstrated a complete lack of backbone as soon as the sponsors they depend on fire funding started leaving and put our a new statement apologising for “poor communication” and promised that they were “not asking any questions or making any demands” to their partners regarding ‘Israel’ and Palestine.
Eventually the chairperson decided to resign as a way of appeasing sponsors.
Received mainstream wisdom as communicated through the mainstream media quickly settled on siding with the sponsors. Everybody seems to agree that it was foolish of the organisation to say “please don’t be an accessory to genocide” to their corporate sponsors, “experts” in the media are talking about how the pride organisation needs to fire their top leadership and grovel at the feet of corporate sponsors and everybody who have opinions for a living are talking about how you shouldn’t connect LGBT rights to “a complex conflict in the middle East”.
There needs to be more written about how western liberal feminism, social progressivism, and LGBT activism has just become a tool for neo colonialism, especially post 2008 financial crash, with the liberal parties in the west changing stances to assimilate these socially progressive movements. This is not social progressivism, this is social regression.
It’s honestly left me extremely disillusioned with social progressivism, even though I am LGBT myself and have faced discrimination and have had to keep all my relationships secret.
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Resistance Sniper Triple cw iof death, no gore
WHY THEY DIDN’T MOVE
Inshallah he goes there in a helicopter
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It’s funny how the current managers of empire are willing to torch their own “international” institutions (that they set up for their own benefit) in order to prop up their settler colonial project that’s going to implode in the long run anyway
I wonder if they truly perceive restraint as weakness and that’s why they always double down and never back off
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Somewhat unrelated, but it’s pretty funny that you change your account every so often considering that your writing style makes you instantly identifiable
I appreciate them though. Whenever I’m feeling too giddy about the downfall of the West I look for their warnings to temper my excitement and consider if it ain’t over yet
“the West’s downfall is inevitable and hegemony will soon be a thing of the past” and “the American Empire is still a sturdy and somewhat competent entity and it will be the challenge of the century to meaningfully destroy their institutions and monetary dominance” aren’t statements in conflict. they are a dialectic of thesis and antithesis that is making out, sloppy style. understanding and internalizing both will make you the True Geopolitics Understander
Agree, that’s why I enjoy droplet’s comments. They remind me of the difficulty of the struggle whenever I’m feeling too, hmmm, idk, “optimistic”? Or for when I’m happily dancing on the corpse that hasn’t yet died.
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ABC - Ukrainian colonel presses for more US arms as his brigade battles Russian onslaught: Reporter’s notebook [23/05/2024]
Despite the advances made but the Russians, [Col. Oleksandr Bakulin] pushed back at the idea that Ukraine is losing the war, saying, “I personally think that we have already won this war. The question is at what point it is going to end, and at what stage.”
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Windows introduces Bonzi Buddy
i guess it’s slightly reassuring that it will only work on specific chips? but still awful in pretty much every way you might imagine at first glance.
Also it’s so fucking funny that they shoved the AI buzzword in there somehow for an automatic screenshot taker feature. The AI is too shitty to even tell what’s a password to keep it from being stored in the screenshot. The future is so… enshitified.
Moved to Linux Mint a few months ago on my desktop and couldn’t be happier. Make sure all the apps you use are compatible, but otherwise I can’t recommend it enough
Even
is tired of IsraelMacron operates in this very interesting space where he’s a ghoul but he’s a ghoul who can at least read the way the world’s going. Pushing for EU autonomy from the US, just met with Xi, wanted to negotiate with Russia rather than arm Ukraine, etc. It won’t work, and he’s going to be replaced by a fascist/is already morphing himself into a fascist domestically and in New Caledonia, but he’s a fascinating figure nonetheless.
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