Image (source here) is of a section of the Yarlung Zangbo river, which forms the deepest canyon on the planet.
The idea of doing any sort of general preamble for China is a little absurd given how ubiquitous they are in economics and politics, so I'm just going to hop right in to a recent news item of interest: China is working on the construction of an enormous new hydropower project in Tibet (@Metabola@hexbear.net had brought this up just before the last news mega ended).
This project (consisting of, I believe, five dams) will be overall three times larger than the Three Gorges Dam, will cost $167 billion, and will supply 70 GW (by itself more power than several significant countries generate). There are, of course, meaningful concerns regarding concerning environmental damage, but helping to avert catastrophic climate change seems worth it. The news coming out of the clean energy sector of China has getting only more encouraging over the last few years, even as the fully neoliberalized Europe and America descend into climate skepticism and refuse to adequately fund projects that could avert the worst of climate change.
Geopolitically, given recent India-China tensions (for example, sending Pakistan the equipment to shoot down Indian jets, as well as run-of-the-mill border tensions) one expects India to not receive the news very well, as the river upon which the dam is being constructed proceeds to flow into Arunachal Pradesh. But from what I understand of the Indian hydrological situation (which is, admittedly, not much), I don't think enough of the water in India comes from the river for China to hypothetically cause any kind of water shortages in India - the monsoons seem to supply plenty of freshwater all by themselves. Nonetheless, as with all Chinese news, wild fearmongering abounds.
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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.
https://youtube.com/shorts/GfiEHCX0mB0
Luna Oi making a video on Thailand and Cambodia conflict soon. Here's a short until then
Some people have said this is another war in the proxy wars that the US wants to cause to de-stabilize China, similar to India-Pakistan.
I disagree, I think these conflicts are more about the fact that international multilateral order has been gutted, and countries are seeing more green lights to carry out their bourgeois wars. I would not be surprised if more conflict sparks in for example Greece vs Turkey, or Venezuela vs Guyana and the such when countries realize the US is more and more hand tied in its imperialist projects and will not be the stabilizing hand it was in its unipolar moment.
Additionally, thinking that all of these wars are masterminded by the US is defeatist nonsense, the US is barely able to scrape by in Ukraine and Israel, how is it gonna be so powerful to suddenly be puppet master to every single border war on Earth.
100% agree. This is what a truly "multipolar" world order looks like. India/Pakistan and this are only a taste of what's on the horizon in the coming years.
This. America is a dying lion, and now the younger are coming for their piece of flesh
I don't know any people who have claimed that the US directly controls every war but I think it's safe to say that within almost every war or conflict the US has at least one side they back who, if successful in seizing power, will sacrifice their own people to do what the US wants. The US side doesn't always win which shows the limitations of US force projection, but I think this has as much to do with the lack of good options for the US to back in any given country. If all you have is Juan Guido and co to go against the institution of Chavismo, no amount of US backing could help you. The national identity was too strong, even with an economy absolutely decimated by sanctions, the people chose to stick it out instead of go against their national interests. I would be surprised if the US didn't have its hand in what's going on in Thailand and Cambodia. They don't have to be orchestrating every situation to be involved, impactful, and ready to reap some rewards
Pretty much, 5-10 years from now once climate change starts getting realy bad we'll see war and fascism everywhere, the neoliberal order collapsing, all the naive idiotic BRICS-BRI stuff leading to nothing and geopolitical commentators will be like "is this a plot against China?"
Yes the US wants to actively work for this, but China's stability as you put it is also deeply invested into the monstrosity of the current neoliberal globalized world economy, it depends upon the maintainance of the current status quo and we know for a fact this wont last. People don't need US influence to fight when climate change starts to get even worse.
I think those are good points, and we need to be looking for evidence to support such speculations rather than cramming this conflict into a broader geopolitical framework. Caution is warranted until we can get a clear perspective on what's actually driving the conflict. Speculation, however, can be great fun. If the US is seriously considering a war with China, or knows that China is going to move militarily to retake Taiwan, lighting as many fires as possible in China's backyard might be something the US would do. A more developed Laos and Cambodia in close strategic and economic alignment with China also constitutes a strategic challenge for Vietnam. Both the US and Vietnam have influence in Cambodia, and the US has basically dominated Thailand as a vassal for the past 80 years. It's certainly possible for them to push Cambodia and Thailand into war to destabilize China's strategic position in Southeast Asia.
I think it's both, international bourgeois rivalry and the US opportunistically fanning the flames when and where they can. The empire isn't acting logically though I can see them accelerating and beginning new conflicts without much of an afterthought. The multi polar world is definitely going to have much of this in future.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: