I know the Rambo title card is a hoax.
The COTW was chosen in the wake of the aborted sequel to the attempted assassination of Trump being performed by a guy who is VERY enthusiastic about Ukraine, to the point of trying to sneak Afghan soldiers into Ukraine by setting up a house in Pakistan to house them and then further transport them. He also apparently offered to send thousands of Afghan soldiers to Haiti to help them combat gang violence. Whomst among us doesn’t have the numbers of thousands of Afghan soldiers on speed-dial. Do you reckon there’s a group chat?
Anyway, while there is still no official recognition of the Taliban’s government by any country, China has taken a different course than the late USSR and the US - forming economic in-roads, rather than trying their own invasion. This has been a big boon for the struggling country, with various mines and oil and agriculture deals helping keep things barely afloat. A total disintegration of the social fabric of Afghanistan is not in the interest of any of the powers that border it - China, Pakistan, and Iran, with Russia not too far away - so an interesting dynamic of helping-without-official-recognition has been established. I wonder who will be the first country to fully recognize them?
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 Afghanistan! 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 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.
#Killdozer to Israel #930 4/6
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https://oec.world/en/games/tradlespoiler
thought Sudan was already the answer recently, but I was thinking about South Sudan
This is a pretty bizarre story of Russian billionaire stuff. Husband and wife dispute over a major Russian tech company merger which seems like a terrible deal, the worst deal folks, he doesn’t want it to happen and comes to the office, there’s an altercation with security and 9 people get shot. It’s hard to tell what’s going on here
So, the two US mercs that were part of the, not a joke, Zairian group that attemptrd a coup in thr DRC were sentenced to death.
Let’s be honest, Iran has no other option than to make nukes. They are already treated like shit, isfake has shown such bloodlust that shows this is the only way. Even if the zionist entity dissolves in most peaceful way, there will be threat of nuclear attack to them at last minute. You are not missing out by not getting western goods that probably have some bomb on them
Cards Against Humanity sues SpaceX, alleges “invasion” of land on US/Mexico border
Apparently they’re saying SpaceX has invaded land that CAH bought to prevent the Trump border wall.
“Seven years ago, 150,000 people paid us $15 to protect a pristine parcel of land on the US-Mexico border from racist billionaire Donald Trump’s very stupid wall. Unfortunately, an even richer, more racist billionaire—Elon Musk—snuck up on us from behind and completely fucked that land with gravel, tractors, and space garbage.”
“If we win, we’ll equally split the lawsuit’s net proceeds among all 150,000 of our original subscribers, up to $100 each,” the company said. “While this isn’t enough to compensate our subscribers for the anguish they’ve suffered witnessing Elon Musk defile their once-verdant land⸺where wild horses galloped freely in the Texas moonlight⸺we think it’s a pretty good start.”
Lmao if you paid $15 to CAH several years ago, they’re gonna give you $100 when they win.
Good talk between Justin Podur and Laith Marouf about Strategic Patience. I encourage anyone who is doubting the resolve or timing of the Axis of Resistance to watch it.
Brazilian lawyer hired as X’s legal representative quits position. Vanessa Souza, a lawyer currently based in England, was hired in the middle of this month as X’s legal representative in Brazil, but the deal between her and Musk fell through even before the announcement.
Some combat footage from the Kursk front.
Russian drones obliterated a German-built Leopard 2 tank: https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/newtank:4
Russian drone strike destroyed a German-built “Marder” infantry fighting vehicle: https://lostarmour.info/media/videos/news/22875.mp4
Russian strike destroyed a US-supplied “Stryker” armored personnel carrier: https://odysee.com/@RT:fd/precision-strike:7
Mourning people I’ve never known. Glory to the martyrs
(1) Hezbollah mourns Ahmad Mahmoud Wahbi from Adloun in southern Lebanon, martyred on the path to Al-Quds.
🚩 @ResistanceTrench
https://t.me/ResistanceTrench/31124
(2) 🇮🇷🇱🇧🇸🇾 Picture of martyr Ahmad Wahbi with martyr Hajj Qassem Soleimani during the fight against ISIS terrorists in Syria
🚩 @ResistanceTrench https://t.me/ResistanceTrench/31125
it is so enraging that the dominant narrative surrounding israel poisoning supply chains with explosive-stuffed tech, then remotely and blindly detonating these explosives and injuring thousands of civilians would immediately be paraded around by Westerners as “israel’s targeted attacks against Hezbollah”
But it’s not even surprising, because these are the same rotten souls who claim israel is “fighting Hamas”, even though israel has killed tens of innocent thousands of Palestinians, in addition to maiming and debilitating tens of thousands more, and leaving 2 million Palestinians with no safe place to go, little food or water to consume, and little to no access to necessary healthcare.
I fucking hate it all.
The Three Mile Island nuclear plant is being restarted, exclusively to power Microsoft’s data centers.
First time a US nuclear plant has ever been recommissionedBig if true assuming Kim actually cares about how Korea gained independence from imperial Japan and the fact that I am pretty sure they were on the Soviet side of the sinko Soviet split. Seems little fishy though.
The US could stop all of this anytime they want. Just as WW1 was allowed to start because Austria knew that whatever dumb fuck move they made Germany would back them, Israel assumes it can act with impunity because the US stands behind them. Literally all that Biden would have to do, all that Harris would have to suggest, is that the US move from unconditional to conditional support. ‘You guys can commit genocide if you want and we won’t stop you, but we won’t subsidise it either and if it leads to a larger war you’re on your own.’ If that message was seriously given Israel would chill tf out faster than any country in history has. In that sense the US and the Dem’s are just as responsible for this genocide and the oncoming war as Israel is.