some wild speculative article in naked capitalism that some of the drones are searching/training to search dirty bomb.
Simpler explanation that usa cities are routinely filmed from drones to search for undesirables is impossible of course
this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
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Bulletins and News Discussion from December 16th to December 22nd, 2024 - Assad's Apology
(hexbear.net)
Image is of Assad's presidential palace in 2013. There's more images of it in this article, though the words in it aren't worth reading.
Here is Assad's version of events. I like to imagine he's making one of those Youtuber apology videos where they sigh at the start and talk in a chastised yet somewhat defensive tone of voice.
As terrorism spread across Syria and ultimately reached Damascus on the evening of Saturday 7th December 2024, questions arose about the president's fate and whereabouts. This occurred amidst a flood of misinformation and narratives far removed from the truth, aimed at recasting international terrorism as a liberation revolution for Syria.
At such a critical juncture in the nation’s history, where truth must take precedence, it is essential to address these distortions. Unfortunately, the prevailing circumstances at the time, including a total communication blackout for security reasons, delayed the release of this statement. This does not replace a detailed account of the events that unfolded, which will be provided when the opportunity allows.
First, my departure from Syria was neither planned nor did it occur during the final hours of the battles, as some have claimed. On the contrary, I remained in Damascus, carrying out my duties until the early hours of Sunday 8th December 2024. As terrorist forces infiltrated Damascus, I moved to Latakia in co-ordination with our Russian allies to oversee combat operations. Upon arrival at the Hmeimim airbase that morning, it became clear that our forces had completely withdrawn from all battle lines and that the last army positions had fallen. As the field situation in the area continued to deteriorate, the Russian military base itself came under intensified attack by drone strikes.
With no viable means of leaving the base, Moscow requested that the base’s command arrange an immediate evacuation to Russia on the evening of Sunday 8th December. This took place a day after the fall of Damascus following the collapse of the final military positions and the resulting paralysis of all remaining state institutions.
At no point during these events did I consider stepping down or seeking refuge, nor was such a proposal made by any individual or party. The only course of action was to continue fighting against the terrorist onslaught.
I reaffirm that the person who, from the very first day of the war, refused to barter the salvation of his nation for personal gain, or to compromise his people in exchange for numerous offers and enticements is the same person who stood alongside the officers and soldiers of the army on the front lines, just metres from terrorists in the most dangerous and intense battlefields. He is the same person who, during the darkest years of the war, did not leave but remained with his family alongside his people, confronting terrorism under bombardment and the recurring threats of terrorist incursions into the capital over 14 years of war. Furthermore, the person who has never abandoned the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon, nor betrayed his allies who stood by him, cannot possibly be the same person who would forsake his own people or betray the army and nation to which he belongs.
I have never sought positions for personal gain but have always considered myself as a custodian of a national project, supported by the faith of the Syrian people, who believed in its vision. I have carried an unwavering conviction in their will and ability to protect the state, defend its institutions, and uphold their choices to the very last moment.
When the state falls into the hands of terrorism and the ability to make a meaningful contribution is lost, any position becomes void of purpose, rendering its occupation meaningless. This does not, in any way, diminish my profound sense of belonging to Syria and her people – a bond that remains unshaken by any position or circumstance. It is a belonging filled with hope that Syria will once again be free and independent.
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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.
Have we had any confirmation of an actual drone swarm that doesn’t say “United” on the side?
Yeah in a future fash state drones will be definitely used to silently eliminate undesirables, a lot of "mysterious deaths"
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https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1868830594991636722
This 👇 potentially changes everything, it looks like Trump envisions a U.S.-China G2.
He says that "China and the United States can together solve all the problems in the world". https://x.com/kyleichan/status/1868741445815091393/video/1%E2%80%A6
From the point of view of a citizen of the Earth, I'm all for an improved relationship between the U.S. and China. And so far, despite some of his hawkish appointments, all of the statements by Trump himself point to that. Actions must follow of course, which is anything but a given: U.S. rhetoric often bears little correlation to their actions...
From the point of view of a European though, a US-China G2 would be a strategic disaster of the highest order. In fact it's long been something that many European strategic thinkers have warned about: if a US-China G2 materializes without Europe at the table, it will be on the menu.
A U.S.-China G2 would effectively mark an end to the undeclared world war we've been witnessing these past few years and declare the U.S. and China to be the 2 winners, setting the new rules of the game together the way the winners of WW2 did. Europe had a De Gaulle and a Churchill back then to defend its interests, there's virtually no-one today...
Which is why I've long said it was so strategically dumb for Europe to blindly follow the U.S. in its hostile strategy against China as one day (which looks like it may be coming soon) the U.S. would be bound to flip its position, leaving Europe exposed and with a damaged relationship with China. The smarter approach would have been to maintain an equally balanced relationships with both powers while building up European strategic autonomy. Instead of following Washington's lead on chip restrictions, decoupling initiatives, and confrontational rhetoric, Europe could have carved out its own path...
The question now is whether Europe can still recover its strategic position. And unfortunately the challenge appears nearly insurmountable: years of strategic complacency have left Europe vulnerable at precisely the moment when strength and independence are most crucial, with a complete absence of leaders of the caliber needed to navigate such tricky waters...
Saw this coming from miles away. US threatens China with tariffs while killing Europe as a potential consumer base to absorb Chinese export surpluses through inciting a Ukraine-Russia conflict.
US now defeats China’s capital control as China invites American capital to enter through foreign direct investment, entrenching dollar hegemony while enabling the US to shift away from running huge trade deficits, which had led to the MAGA movement (or the Bernie Sanders movement in another timeline) from disfranchised American workers. In other words, the US partially stops de-industrialization (but won’t re-industrialize, so contradictions will continue to grow) without having to sacrifice the primacy of the dollar.
China gets to keep its growth while continuing to alleviate millions more out of poverty, gets its talents back from US purge, preserves its industrial capacity but loses financial sovereignty in the process.
Europe and the Global South lose. European exodus to the US will fulfill America’s white supremacist dream. The rest of the Global South will be left vulnerable to fend for themselves.
Now, we wait and see how China responds to this offer.
Firefly was right. It's happening.
(It is absolutely not happening lmao)
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There's no way this happens right? The national security state seems committed to confrontation with China and while the CPC has only met USAmerican provocation with a limited response, there's no way they will be ready to "get back under the boot" (which presumably will be a condition in some concrete form) surely
See my comment to another user below.
Basically, yuan issuance is strongly reliant on accumulation of foreign reserve and refinancing of non-banking assets, both of which can be increased by foreign direct investment.
Unlike China who is trying to create a win-win scenario for everyone, the US is forcing everyone to play their lose-lose torture game. The US is willing to kill its own consumption through tariffs to destroy export revenues in other countries. The question is do you want to risk playing this game? If you lose, your industries get wiped out and IMF comes in and privatize your industrial assets.
This is the carrot that the US is extending to China (let’s keep the charade going for a bit longer). The stick is to damage both sides of the economy and see who lasts longer. Because China issues its money through relying on accumulating foreign currencies by selling shit to Western consumers, and Europe is going into austerity which means they can no longer absorb China’s exports in the event of US tariffs, this will place China in a difficult situation.
China’s only way to win this game is to transition itself from a super exporter country into a domestic consumption economy through direct central bank money creation, which then allows it to increase the wages of its own citizens, who can then use their increased income to import stuff from other Global South countries. In other words, China exports its industrial capacity to the Global South and absorbs the export surpluses from the rest of the world. This neutralizes the dollar hegemony and allows the rest of the world to develop into their own economic zone that is independent of the parasitic US financial empire, provided the US doesn’t threaten to start a nuclear war.
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"if the occupation stops imposing new conditions" seems like a load-bearing part of that sentence 
Came across this image that goes incredibly hard when looking up Russia's NBC protection forces (due to the assassination this morning)
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Attack kills head of Russia's nuclear and chemical weapons defenses in Moscow.
A bomb implanted in a scooter and detonated from a distance killed General Igor Kirillov on Tuesday (17). Ukraine's security agency, which accuses Kirillov of using banned chemical weapons in the war, told Reuters that the country was behind the attack.
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