Bulletins and News Discussion from August 5th to August 11th, 2024 - LGBT - COTW: Iraq
Bulletins and News Discussion from August 5th to August 11th, 2024 - LGBT - COTW: Iraq
Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.
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 Iraq! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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The bulletins site is here!
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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.
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Bengladesh was a color revolution by US oligarchs. These "students" leading the protests are dupes. They want an obvious US State dept asset Mohammed Yunus to rule. 84 year old founder of a bank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Yunus
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance.
He first received a Fulbright Scholarship from the US State Department, then received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009
, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010. In 2020, he also signed a letter from the National Endowment for DemocracyIn January 2008, Houston, Tex@$$ declared 14 January as "Muhammad Yunus Day"
Education
University of Dhaka (BA, MA) Vanderbilt University (PhD)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_family_of_organizations
The Grameen Bank started to diversify in the late 1980s when it began attending to unutilized or underutilized fishing ponds, as well as irrigation pumps like deep tubewells.[1] In 1989, these diversified interests started growing into separate organizations, as the fisheries project became Grameen Fisheries Foundation and the irrigation project became Grameen Krishi Foundation.
These ventures include the Social Advancement Fund (SAF), Grameen Trust, Grameen Telecom Trust, Grameen Fund, Grameen Communications, Grameen Shakti (Grameen Energy), Grameen Telecom, Grameen Shikkha (Grameen Education), Grameen Mothsho Foundation, Grameen Krishi Foundation, Grameen Baybosa Bikash (Grameen Business Development), Grameenphone, Grameen Software Limited, Grameen CyberNet Limited, Gonoshasthaya Grameen Textile Mills Limited, Grameen Capital Management Limited, Grameen Knitwear Limited, Grameen Mutual Fund One, Grameen Kalyan (Grameen Well-being), Grameen Shamogree (Grameen Products), Grameen Danone Foods (joint venture with Groupe Danone) and Grameen Uddog (Grameen Enterprise, owner of brand Grameen Check).[
There's a bunch more but it ticks all the
boxes.yea its very sus, Yunus is a parasite. though they say its just the interim Government and that elections would be held within three months.
Color revolution, I still don't think is the right categorization since the previous Government wasn't exactly anti-west. Though, I'm sure U.S. didn't like them getting close with China. The protests have been captured by the right-wing Islamists and U.S. aligned neoliberals.
Edit: Microfinance was peak 2000s neoliberalism. Instead of local loan-sharks you have legalized formalized loan-sharks.
Grameen's major innovation in that space was to loan money to people in "pods" and make everyone in the pod ineligible for future loans if one of the members doesn't repay. That way they didn't have to turn the screws themselves, they got everyone's friends and neighbors to do it for them.
Jovenel Moïse wasn't exactly anti-west either
The protests have been captured by the right-wing Islamists and U.S. aligned neoliberals.
can you share more on this? anecdotally I'm hearing the latter are a much bigger deal than the former in post hasina bangladesh
The difference is negligible when it comes to foreign policy, both groups are known sellout compradors
The military invited the banned Jamat e Islami to the talks on interim Government. They were allied with the largest opposition party, BNP before Hasina (under the jailed former Prime Minister who was released recently by the military).
Jamat e Islami was against independence from Pakistan and extremely reactionary. They collaborated with the Pakistani army (Pakistani Government was a US puppet then).see
Hasina's Government actually took action against them unlike the previous BNP Governments. My guess is they saw the protests as the perfect opportunity to take her out, deep state sorta thing.
This isn't to defend Hasina's actions, which were excessive and only contributed to the public anger. She wasnt very pro worker either. just that the replacement will likely be worse.
An interesting Vincent Bevins' point on "color revolutions" from his book "If we burn", is that it's usually incorrect to attribute too much to responsibility to the US for "planning" these kinds of events, however it's probably correct to assume that however this situation shakes out, it's ultimately likely to end up in America's favour because the united states is the only global actor with the resources and the will to intervene and take real advantage of these unstable situations.
The empire doesn't just strike goals, it can also play defense, from the little I know about bangladesh it doesn't seem like a colour revolution where america just struck a goal by supporting protests that took down and opponent, but now that there are going to be real elections it's going to mobilize its means to play defense and certify that they don't lose out on this. Hopefully Bangladesh's proximity to China means the americans don't have too much free reign to do whatever they want.
Seeing as the military stood down (for now) and now there are going to be elections I'm curious as to whether this will go like Egypt, with an already organized islamist organization (muslim brotherhood) defeating a divided unorganized left
grandep
Grameen Bank
my IMF anticommunist professor (no phd btw) was talking about this at length for a whole class. at the time I did not know the issue with this beyond the obvious that it looks like financialized bootstrap garbage
Cynical tankies are always right. It was a color revolution led by idealist compradors like I said
Or the comparators were the only ones with their shit together enough to take power after the government collapsed under its own mistakes. If it was a color revolution why is it being mumbled about in the western press and not being celebrated and congratulated? The western press is burying it in Olympic drama not acting like it is a major win for FreedomandDemocracy™.
I still don't see how throwing a color revolution would benefit usa. The old government was plenty friendly to them.
The underlying conditions that lead to the protests were working conditions and wealth inequality even if the job quotas were the rallying point. I don't see how a american backed interim government is going to address that. More likely the new government is being put in place to insure western investors get their money out of the country. They are trying to make the best out of a bad situation.
The old government did not recognize Israel and was part of Belt and Road
The old government was a secularist party while most of the opposition parties are Islamist parties. A coup isn't likely to soften their line on israel.
Everyone is part of BnR, australia (the nation paying bilions into usa's sub construction, in exchange for second dibs on any leftover retired subs) has BnR deals.
Hardline Islamists are the first group to cozy up to Israel. See: Saudis, UAE, ISIS