Image is of Cuba's National People's Power Assembly.
The most recent geopolitical news around Cuba is the arrival this week of four Russian vessels, including a nuclear submarine - not carrying any nukes, (un)fortunately - to Havana. This will, in Putin's words, merely be a visit celebrating historical ties and no laws are being broken. Nonetheless, it's not hard to imagine how American politicians and analysts are taking the news, especially as it comes shortly after Russia promised an "asymmetrical" response to further NATO involvement in Ukraine (notably, officially allowing the use of US weapons such as missiles in Russia, albeit in a small part of Russian territory, near the border).
Meanwhile, China has been increasingly co-operating with Cuba to overcome the economic hardship created by American sanctions. China has recently re-allowed direct flights to Cuba and has recently donated some small photovoltaic plants as part of an initiative to eventually boost the Cuban energy grid by 1000 MW - and any electrical expansion helps as Cuba is plagued by blackouts which last most of the day. Additionally, the EU has made meaningful contributions to Cuba's energy situation too, with large solar installations. Hopefully, the Belt and Road Initiative will help preserve the Cuban revolution against reactionary forces as the power of US sanctions wanes. The proximity of Cuba to the United States makes this much more challenging than it would be for countries elsewhere, however. Similarly to the situation in Mexico, it seems unlikely that the US's influence over Cuba will massively diminish for decades to come unless there is a catastrophic internal collapse in the American authoritarian regime.
The Havana Syndrome will continue until American morale declines.
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 Cuba! 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.
US Wants To Create ‘Hellscape’ of Drones If China Attacks Taiwan
America, famous for being able to manufacture reliable equipment en masse and engage in attrition warfare
lol
It is absolutely incredible and un-sane that the US openly, constantly screams about how badly it wants to go to war, and is openly planning a war with, it's largest and essential trade partner.
also, the idea that the military has the ability to maintain the logistics train for thousands of any new complex system like thousands of robots operating in hostile conditions seems open to question.
They're going to use drones to go to war with the country that makes their drones/drone parts.
When Ur definitely the good guy in the doomsday movie
When you have watched stargate: SG1 too many times.
This is strategically idiotic. The description of using thousands of drones as something that is distinct from (buying time for) the defence of the island is out to lunch. Building thousands and thousands of drones and munitions will be the entire war, not just a month. Have these people learned nothing from Russia v Ukraine? Drones are consumable objects. A war isn't won by having a bunch of them stockpiled, it's won by having the productive and logistical capacity to replace losses and keep putting rounds on target. Their goal here is 18 months of production to buy 1 month of time - that is 5% the speed it needs to be.
army guys have the worst acronyms
They're still living in the Iraq war days where all you had to do was utterly destroy and genocide the population you're fighting.
The “classified capabilities” is actually the revelation of the Ghost of DC. When the Chinese think the swarm of drones have all been shot down, the Ghost will take down 500 Chinese warships
You think the ghost of Taipei is fake? Google “the white terror”
You ever read a name and instantly know that in 20 years you'll be hearing about how his terrible ideas got a bunch of people killed?
Blowback Season 12: Operation [Taiwan] Strait Jacket
This is what developers say when they have no idea what the scope of the project really is
2 years (optimistic) to do something that will buy me a month. I will definitely come up with something in that month that will win the war.
The answer will be “ah shit ok. Nukes.”
also completely delusional on logistical issues
But they’re so close to China which is where all these US drones will be manufactured that’s got to be good for logistics
Americans who have a realistic view of things that actually happen are overwhelmingly communists.
China will obviously collapse after the first month. Just Ike Russia did.
They need a month to sabotage all the TSMC and Foxconn factories beyond repair and then try to blame it on China like they did with Russia and Nordstream.
all those statements about how the US is considering blowing up the semiconductor fabs in the event that a war with China begins will mysteriously evaporate into the ether the minute that the war over Taiwan begins, just like how all the articles about how Ukraine is infested with fascists were mysteriously much harder to find once the Ukraine War revved up
Just really laying that out there huh. Just naked aggression and China's supposed to be the bad guy lol
Taken steps mean they have begun a meeting about setting up a committee to see if creating a committee to look at meeting about building drones is a good idea. Then, after several years, they will decide whether or not they have the productive capacity to do so. Which will lead to them asking China if they can manufacture drones for them.
The MBA's are on it folks
Military asks for thousands of autonomous drones within a year?
They’ll get a hundred at fifty times the cost, in eight-ten years.
And most of them will probably be rebranded Chinese drones which in turn funded real Chinese military production lol
If the US moves thousands of drones into the strait or to Taiwan, that’s an act of war and China should strike immediately