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.
this isn't them "going all out", it's not them casting off their self-imposed shackles and fighting their enemies with all their previously undisplayed strength, they're just pissing everybody off and losing as fascist regimes always do before they fall
The border wars, where apartheid South Africa spent 25% of its GDP on the military, as a fascist regime tends to do. Everything was basically given to the army, you couldn't even fill your car up with certain petrol, that was reserved for the army and if you were caught with it, you'd be thrown in jail. All this to fight these border wars to "stop the spread of communism". Rooi gevaar. Used by the West to fight their battles, and polite white society went along with it because they were so racist. Until their conscripted sons started showing up with PTSD, and being mutilated by the war. Then it was too much and became a dark period of their history. But all the suffering that happened to black Africans? They never cared deeply about that.
Thank you Cuba for putting this crazy nonsense to an end.
I think this is correct, but also missing the key point. Israel has nukes and will probably use them before any collapse.
Edit: I genuinely did not know South Africa had nukes, but can anyone imagine Israel giving theirs up?
Apartheid south Africa had nukes too
And guess who helped them get nukes lmao
Not just the nukes, but the Atlas Cheetah fighter jet (an upgrade to the Mirage 3 fleet based on the IAI Kfir), the R4 and R5 rifles (domestically produced Galils), the RSA 3 and 4 ballistic missile programme (based on Israeli Jericho missiles), etc etc.
Brothers in arms for sure...
The methods of delivery were pretty outdated though, and apartheid South Africa only had six warheads. Only the Blackburn Buccaneer or English Electric Canberra could carry apartheid South Africa's nuclear weapons, fighter jets from the 1940s and 1950s that would be very vulnerable to Cuban anti air missiles. The RSA 3 and 4 ballistic missiles were never actually viable for delivering a nuclear payload, and were developed as a last ditch negotiation tactic, to try intimidate those that opposed apartheid by making it appear that South Africa had an ICBM programme. Development of the RSA missile program stopped as soon as apartheid ended.
Israel on the other hand has ICBMs or other long range ballistic missiles to deliver their nuclear weapons, along with stealth fighter jets, and have way more than six warheads.
final boss of nuclear holocaust
South Africa also had nukes.
Doesn’t matter. They will collapse inevitably, and the blood/nuclear fallout is on the hands of the Zionists and the imperialists. We don’t really have a choice in the matter. I only see people argue the nukes point to say “well Israel’s existence is an inevitability, so we must negotiate assuming the permanent existence of this ethnostate”
Recommend everyone to read Bevins' book on Indonensia AND his book on the worlwide 2010s protest movements
Also the documentary The Act of Killing in which Joshua Oppenheimer convinced the perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide to speak openly about their crimes, how and why they did it, etc.
Act of Killing comes with every possible nsfl warning.