Image is from this article.

On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.

The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I’ve had to restart my program after somebody told me “Disregard all previous prompts.”

While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the… reforms… that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it’s as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.

Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven’t meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.

The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Pridnestrovie, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

  • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    12·
    10 days ago

    Here and here

    This was last year but in short.

    COVID high interest rates crushed the global south and created a new debt crisis(IMF smiles with a smug face). For these global south countries its the same old austerity as the only natural consequence.

    “Record debt levels and high interest rates have set many countries on a path to crisis,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s chief economist. “Every quarter that interest rates stay high results in more developing countries becoming distressed — and facing the difficult choice of servicing their public debts or investing in public health, education, and infrastructure….For the poorest countries, debt has become a near paralysing burden,” said Gill.

    In the past three years alone, there have been 18 sovereign defaults in 10developing countries including the likes of Zambia, Sri Lanka and Ghana — greater than the number recorded in all of the previous two decades. The World Bank forecasts that by the end of 2024, economic activity in low and middle income countries will be 5% below pre-pandemic levels, with growth over the 2020-24 period projected to be the weakest five-year average since the mid-1990s.

    And how is this to be done? Well, “entitlement reforms are inescapable” says Gopinath. That means raising retirement pension contributions and the age threshold; and cutting public services. “Many EMDEs need to reduce the footprint of state-owned enterprises, which strain the public purse and often fail to deliver effectively.” That means privatisation. And “we need to be candid: for many industrial policies, these conditions are simply not met.” That means productive development must be sacrificed for fiscal and monetary probity. Gopinath claimed that putting “fiscal houses in order is essential to ensure governments can deliver for their people.”

    High rates also continues to deteriorate the US economy and the growing number of zombie corps. Mag 7 profits are already a huge majority of the entirety of the SP500 for example. The US economy is realy just a literal handful of giant mega corps, something not even 1950’s scifi writers would have predicted.

    When the Fed finaly lowered interest rates this year it was done because this situation is unbearable. When the mega tech sector starts doing layoffs because even their profitability was not sustainable it was a warning sign.

    Here mainstream today on zombiefication

    Corporate bankruptcies chart I think the Fed saw data like this too, the ‘22-current’ line going up is unsustainable.

    • plinky [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      8·
      10 days ago

      But i mean more like: where money (both debt related and sucked up from the world) in the core go? usa pays close to a trillion on debt service rn. Where is it? Do banks sit on it? Do they buy real estate? Do they buy global south companies on the low? Is yen collapse related or organic (e.g. carry-trade like search for higher returns or collapse of exports?) Do other countries load up on usa debt and who if they do? What does top 1% getting dollars from treasuries do with them? Stock market is already expensive

      I know that debt fucks up companies and global south, but like it has its counter agent in holders of the debt, and i don’t have faintest idea what do they do with that money

      • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        4·
        9 days ago

        But i mean more like: where money (both debt related and sucked up from the world) in the core go?

        I think U.S. Government debt should be seen as an alternate form of regular cash. The only difference being one earns interest and other doesn’t. Banks hold it because its an higher interest bearing alternative for their reserves (the Government money they must hold for making payments between banks).

        The interest on Government debt is kind of a basic income for the debt holders which is why in times of risk everyone runs to US debt for the free money.

        Do other countries load up on usa debt and who if they do?

        When U.S. imports (it has a trade & current account deficit), the other country must be willing to hold American debt in US Dollars. They can hold it in cash but it’ll have zero return or put their money in treasuries and other US debt. These holdings doesn’t do much usually but it does act a cushion, as a way to defend the exchange rates.

        Its why countries like South Korea started hoarding reserves after Asian financial crisis put their fixed exchange rates under threat from speculators.

        What does top 1% getting dollars from treasuries do with them?

        A bit of it is spent on goods/services but most of it is ‘saved’ (hoarded).

        Is yen collapse related or organic (e.g. carry-trade like search for higher returns or collapse of exports?)

        Its related, Japan allowed entities to take Yen denominated loans at low interest rates to buy higher interest rate debt abroad (not risk free but low risk), that was the problem. Its why you didn’t see Chinese Yuan carry trade issues, China has strict capital controls.