Image is of the Cuban flag and the Pride flag on the Havana Health Ministry building.
Inspired by a highly upvoted recommendation by @Commiejones@hexbear.net:
We need to kill the Mega Posting Wars meme. It wasn't very funny to start with and now I get the feeling some people are taking it way too seriously. Clogging up the news thread with bullshit just to try to out post the trans mega is just dumb and annoying.
The News Megathread is now under trans martial law:
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Loving trans people on this site and elsewhere is strictly mandatory.
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Posting about the "comment wars" between the trans and news megathreads is now strongly discouraged inside the news megathread. No shame in it - I also recently made jokes about it - but though they were almost always just jokes, it was unrelated to current events and was beginning to feel more like padding the comment count instead of trying to improve the quality of the thread. If you want to boost comments and engagement here, then post articles and analysis!
The COTW (Chemical of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific chemical every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied chemicals. If you've wanted to talk about the chemical 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 Chemicals of the Week are Estrogen and Testosterone! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants.
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.
Egypt buys China's J-10C fighters to replace F-16s.
https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/egypt-j10c-f16s-reports
spoiler
The Egyptian Defence Ministry has reportedly placed its first ever order for Chinese fourth generation fighters, with an unspecified number of J-10C fighters reported to have been ordered on August 19. This development comes as Cairo has continued to strengthen strategic and economic ties with Beijing, and follows its admission to the Chinese-led BRICS bloc earlier this year. The acquisition makes Egypt the second client for the J-10C after Pakistan, although unconfirmed reports indicate that neighbouring Sudan had reached an agreement on acquisitions before the outbreak of an insurgency in the country in April 2024 delayed talks for a purchase. The fighters are reportedly intended to replace Egypt’s ageing F-16 Fighting Falcons as these begin to be phased out of service. The acquisition has been speculated to be intended as an alternative to American proposals that Egypt acquire the F-16V upgrade package to modernise its F-16s, with the J-10C considered to have a superior combat capability to this enhanced F-16 model while coming at a similar cost to the package. Other than three squadrons of MiG 29M fighters ordered from Russia in 2015, all of Egypt’s fourth generation fighters are of Western origin, with the J-10C acquisition seen as a potential turning point for the country’s fleet in line with prevailing political trends.Reports of orders for the J-10C have emerged as Egyptian officials have expressed growing concern with the ongoing Western-backed Israeli war effort in the Gaza Strip, with Cairo being particularly concerned that the Israeli operation is intended to push the Gazan population onto Egyptian territory. The acquisition of J-10s is particularly significant when considering the current state of the Egyptian fighter fleet, which has long been considered almost totally incapable of fighting a major inter-state war. The close to 200 F-16s that form the backbone of the fleet are considered among the least capable fourth generation fighters in the world, and have been heavily downgraded and restricted to using obsolete Cold War era weaponry - and no beyond visual range air to surface weapons whatsoever. This combined with the United States’ control over spare parts supplies, and its tight restrictions imposed on how the aircraft can be operated, seriously limits Egyptian air power.
Alongside its F-16s, Egypt’s French-supplied Rafale fighters ordered since 2015 also suffer from significant downgrades to performance, most significantly the lack of Meteor air to air missiles which seriously limits their combat potential. The J-10C by contrast will provide Egypt with two of the most capable air to air missile classes in the world, the PL-10 and PL-15, which Western sources have widely conceded are significantly more capable than their American counterparts the AIM-9X and AIM-120D. For Egypt, which used Cold War era AIM-9 variants and the obsolete AIM-7, this represents a technological leap of several decades in terms of performance. The J-10C will represent by far the most capable fighter in the country in terms of air to air performance, and possibly the most capable on the African continent. The fighter has proven during simulated combat engagements to be capable of outperforming modern ‘4+ generation’ fighters close to twice its size, including Russian Su-35s and Chinese J-16s, while its arsenal of compatible air to ground ordinance is considerable. The J-10C is considered far more capable than any fighter in the Israeli fleet other than its two squadrons of F-35s, with large scale acquisitions potentially forcing Israel to expand F-35 orders and to invest in more capable air to air missiles for its aircraft.
Big news, as China has been rather slow to become an arms exporter. And Egypt is an outright client state of the US.
It’s so fucking hard to get them off their asses. They are still trading with Israel!
I mean, specifically with weapons exports. It's just not a thing the Chinese were historically interested in. I remember them selling drones to Ethiopia (together with Turkey) was a big deal not too long ago.
PRC used to have cool foreign policy. They used to kill Americans in Korea. Now they are so integrated into the global capitalism system they are frozen and unable to act
Don't underestimate China's war on capitalism. They are poisoning the global capitalism system from the inside. Their economic moves have destroyed American and European industry and significantly brought down living standards in the west while dramatically raising living standards for millions of people in the global south. The financialization of the west and the rise in inequality that accompanies it radicalizes people against capitalism which is far more useful than killing drafted soldiers ever could be.
their 'poisoning from the inside' will only upend the current capitalist order, not destroy capitalism. Look at it as it is, an opportunity for us to exploit, and not that somehow china will save us by doing capitalism harder.