Image is of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Ansarallah.
The death of Zionism has just massively accelerated.
previous preamble
BRICS has expanded to include Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Argentina is currently experiencing technical difficulties due to the election of the ancap clown Milei - once he's out of office, maybe they can try again.
I don't really have much to say about this one way or another. BRICS has, so far, made only nervous and small steps towards challenging US hegemony. This isn't really that unexpected, as only China and Russia are the real "true believers" in ending US hegemony (and even then, China's government either believes, or is pretending to believe, that reconciliation is still possible). Brazil, India, and South Africa are less enthralled by the concept of dethroning the US, most especially India, who had to make a firm decision in 2023 whether they were going to be on the side of America, or on the side of the Global South, and chose the former, strengthening their military relationship. They're still best of friends with Russia, but they are very obviously the sussy imposter of the BRICS group.
The prospects of BRICS are only really loosely correlated with the prospects of multipolarism, though. It's not a process that hinges on BRICS's successes or failures. It is coming because the contender states (in Desai's terminology) are irreversibly rising, and the US is irreversibly falling. If it will not be BRICS that leads, it will be a different organization. A better world is not only possible, but inevitable - unfortunately for the US.
I'm taking a week off the updates because I've been swamped lately, and also feel the need to reconfigure (and find new) sources. Needless to say that I've grown tired of Financial Times headlines, even if they do represent the actual views of the bourgeoisie.
The Country of the Week is Ethiopia! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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.
In Democracy and Rules-Based-International-Order news, China is subverting Taiwanese democracy by reducing the barrier for Taiwanese citizens in China to return to Taiwan to vote
spoiler
Beijing is facing accusations of interference in Taiwan's upcoming election, with Chinese government-owned airlines offering heavily discounted flights to help people return to the island to vote.Some say the initiative aims to maximise the participation of as many pro-Beijing Taiwanese as possible in the upcoming election.
An official document obtained by the ABC reveals that the discounts are exclusively for Taiwanese residents in mainland China.
In Taiwan elections, voters are required to cast their ballots in person, with no provisions for postal voting for those living overseas.
Flights on 10 airlines, mostly Chinese government-owned, are being discounted by as much as 70 per cent in a promotion initiated by the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland (ATIEM), a group linked to China's Taiwan Office.
"The ATIEM is a united front organisation that helps China mobilise Taiwanese business groups," the think tank Taiwan Economic Democracy Union wrote in a statement.
"Beijing obviously has great influence over it.
"If Taipei lets the ATIEM assist Taiwanese business groups to return for voting with cheaper air tickets, it is letting the Chinese Communist Party intervene in Taiwan's election."
The think tank is calling on authorities to prevent political interference from Beijing and to investigate suspicions of election bribery.
Although it's speculated the flight deals are aimed at voters favouring a pro-Beijing candidate, China has not responded to the criticisms.
The ABC has contacted the Chinese embassy for comment, but hasn't received a reply.
At a recent press conference, ATIEM's president Lee Cheng-Hung estimated nearly 80 per cent of Taiwanese in the mainland were expected to vote in the election.
"Taiwanese businesspeople have a strong desire to return to Taiwan to vote now," Mr Lee said.
"They all hope to exercise their rights so that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait can break away from the danger of war and call for continuous exchanges and mutual benefits."
Kelly Chow, a 55-year-old entrepreneur in trade living in Shanghai, purchased her round-trip tickets to Taipei for RMB1,200 ($250), a price that is almost half the usual cost.
"With the looming economic [downturn] and the expense of a family of four departing, this is a pretty good deal for us," Ms Chow told the ABC.
"The election is a very important democratic activity and we would like to take our children back to experience it so that they will be so proud.
"I certainly hope that the new government can do better in trade between the mainland and Taiwan."
On January 13, voters will be choosing between continuing with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party or a change to an opposition party that is more friendly towards Beijing – either the Kuomintang or the Taiwan People's Party.
"It's hard to tell that if they buy the discounted tickets for the election, they are going to vote for the more pro-Beijing candidate," said Dr Kuo Mei-fen, a Taiwanese lecturer at Macquarie University.
"However, because their life and networks are established in China, their perspectives on China will be relatively different from the general public in Taiwan."
Taiwan considers itself a democracy, though Taipei has never formally declared independence, while China considers Taiwan one of its provinces.
(rest of article not included)
Interfering in democracy is when you make it easier for legitimate voters to participate in elections
China probably is meddling tbh, but I also don't really give a shit
Hell yeah. Meddling in democracy is good when it supports socialism, or at least counters fascism, and is bad when it does the opposite. Strongly hoping that Xi is meddling in as many democracies as he can this year.
(2017 SeventyTwoTrillion would have freaked out at that statement and how I wasn't in favour of democracy and would have called me "politically illiterate", but now with more than a dozen books under my belt, I can safely say that the whole "democracy vs autocracy" debate is like watching the shadows on the wall of Plato's Cave while the actual class war is going on outside, unbothered by such concepts)
Yeah I'm completely done with caring about democracy. And I don't think I've ever met a single person who genuinely cares about it either. Everyone thinks democracy is awesome when they get what they want and everyone is willing to suspend democracy whenever their preferred system of government is under threat. It's all 100% cynical
Libs really have a hard time grasping "it's good when we win and bad when we lose", instead reducing everything to a priori idealist arguments and moralizing ethical thought experiments where they delude themselves that all morality and reason bends towards Liberalism. Chuds and fash get it though, which is why the Liberals need them at the end of the day, to actually enforce the Liberal system via violence while Liberals' consciences can remain guilt free while they hide away in towers doing thought experiments and ignoring reality.
no one: say the line, emizeko!
me: democracy is not possible under capitalism due to the outsized power of the ownership class over the means of production
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
China can't meddle in China. Chinese Taipei is China, China's domestic internal affairs are none of the west's business
Of course it can. Taiwan is run by a separate government
By an illegitimate government. PRC is the rightful, legitimate ruler over Taipei and is incapable of "meddling" in its own internal affairs
If anyone was actually saying it, they'd provide an example. This is the author pulling shit out of their ass.
Something like 10% of Taiwanese live in the mainland lmao.