Image is of a solar park in Cuba, donated last year by China, sourced from this article.
To be honest, I don't have much to say about ongoing geopolitical events that hasn't already been said in previous threads (e.g. with India/Pakistan, Trump/Putin, and of course occupied Palestine), so this is more of a "news roundup" preamble for this week.
As we all know, the US (and the imperial core generally) has only three permitted international actions: sanctions, color revolution, and war. None of these have been going well lately, but sanctions are in particularly dire straits right now. Three examples from the last week or so:
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The EU is on its 17th sanctions package, apparently, which is surprising, as I thought they were on their 76th or something. It apparently targets Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers, but I don't think anybody actually gives a shit because we all know it won't achieve anything, so, moving on...
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The head of Nvidia (as well as many others) have come out and said that the US chip export controls on China have failed, remarking that China's internal motivations to develop alternatives are strong and proceeding rapidly, especially as China's number of skilled scientists is only growing. Nvidia has said that they had a 95% share of China's AI chip market in 2020 or so, but now they only have 50%.
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Lastly, an interesting one: Iran has received its first set of railway shipment of solar panels from China, and there is hope for accelerating shipments of even more products. Myself and many others have predicted a decoupling of Iran from the West and towards China and Russia (especially if any Western-built product could have Israeli devices implanted into them, such as with the pager terrorist attack on Lebanon's doctors), and having a strong link with China will be a necessary step for Iran and their allies to continue their offensives against Israel.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
Samidoun writes on X
ostensibly "humanitarian" but instead a mechanism to impose security control & surveillance on Palestinians & keep the starvation regime intact, with an entry into Palestine for US mercenary "military contractors"
This is a fair criticism in hindsight, but considering where we were a year and a half ago, I still consider it a success that the movement solidified on a clear demand like "Ceasefire Now" so rapidly. We have to remember that at the time, the administration and the media was so bloodthirsty that they would not even use the phrase. Then, as things continued getting worse, they spent several months awkwardly playing around with language like "temporary pause" just to avoid saying "ceasefire." A ceasefire was the bare minimum demand which the administration absolutely refused to acknowledge, which made it perfectly appropriate for agitation.
Since the presidential campaign, when they finally embraced the position of "working tirelessly for a ceasefire," it was spent. In the wake of an actual ceasefire which held for about a week before ratcheting the genocide to unprecedented extremes, it is completely meaningless. Demanding a ceasefire at this stage falls far short of what is necessary.
I don't think the movement should be blamed for this though. The state has mustered all of its power to change the meaning of words, such that "ceasefire" means "we're taking a one week break from exterminating the hospitals." And it is worth noting that this is a process which took them a relatively long time to achieve. You couldn't tell from the reporting, but people aren't blind. We all watched this happen. They were stumbling for a LONG time, and now that they have finally "pulled it off," anybody who has been paying attention can see just how worthless it is when they finally claim they support a ceasefire.
"Ceasefire now" was a milquetoast and easily appropriated demand and I pushed local groups (somewhat successfully) to demand something more clearly material and agitational, like ending weapons and money for "Israel". It coalesced wuickly due to liberals embracing their default anti-warism, which they inevitably abandon and fight for with tactics that do nothing.
While the US would also balk at demands like no weapons or money, they raise facts that liberals like to ignore. About their neighbors, about themselves, about their country. "Ceasefire now" allows placement of focus on someone like Netanyahu, to scapegoat him, and for Biden to pretend he was fighting for a ceasefire while sending unlimited weapons and money to "Israel". Demanding an end to weapons and money confronts one's own role and also makes unions pick sides - many imperial core unions are "defense" contractors and many other unions try to have uncritical "solidarity" with those contractor unions.
Keep in mind that I'm emphasizing the impact this has in the imperial core, not on Palestine. That's the main impact of any of this, as we are still far behind in capacity to coerce demands. But just think about how many liberals believed, wanted to believe, and still believe Biden et al wanted a ceasefire. How many are only expressing sympathy for Palestinians now that Trump is president. How they are manipulated by manufactured and misleading headlines like, "Hanas rejects ceasefire deal". Liberals thrive on moving the goalposts away from the material when they want to get away with something. The idea that "Israel" should be cut off never enters their minds.