Bulletins and News Discussion from November 11th to November 17th, 2024 - Chapo? Like, the President-elect of Mozambique? - COTW: Mozambique
Bulletins and News Discussion from November 11th to November 17th, 2024 - Chapo? Like, the President-elect of Mozambique? - COTW: Mozambique
Thank you to @carpoftruth@hexbear.net for covering my position as Supreme Dictator of the Goddamn News while I was moving and getting set up in my new home in a top secret Kremlin-funded bunker five hundred feet below the ground. Our regularly scheduled programming returns this week.
On October 9th, Daniel Chapo won the Mozambique general election with about 70% of the vote. Chapo is the head of FRELIMO, the Marxist-Leninist party of Mozambique's liberation, which fought an internal anti-communist resistance called RENAMO which was backed by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa; Frelimo won in 1975. However, as the USSR fell, Frelimo began to allow elections inside Mozambique, and has ruled the country with significant majorities in each election ever since.
The main opposition party inside Mozambique is Podemos, which is led by Venancio Mondlane, a former member of Renamo and trained inside the USA. He alleges that his polling figures predicted a majority win for him, not Frelimo, and has accused Chapo of electoral fraud. There have been the usual slogans about how they yearn for freedom. The EU, of course, "witnessed irregularities." As @WilsonWilson@hexbear.net has pointed out, Mozambique has massive undeveloped gas fields and is outsourcing the development process to France, Norway, the UK, and the USA, while mysterious Islamist groups have popped up to cause chaos in the exact regions which have the gas, slowing the process of actually developing those gas fields. Overall, it appears to be a cookie-cutter colour revolution attempt by the imperial core designed to install a comprador for cheaper resources. Its proximity to BRICS+ member South Africa may also be significant, noting the colour revolution in Bangladesh earlier this year exerting influence near India and China.
Protestors have been battling against the police and government since late October, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries as well as massive disruption, as the government has intermittently blocked access to the internet and social media. As of today, calm appears to be returning, with border crossings beginning to reopen.
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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.
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In the Amazon, US President Joe Biden signed the document that creates the International Day of Conservation and also stipulated the resources that will be allocated to the Amazon Fund.
“At first, I thought I was fighting to save the rubber tappers. Then I realized I was fighting to save the Atlantic Forest and the rainforest, and then I realized I was fighting for humanity. (...) Today, I'm proud to be here.” - Joe Biden
Directly from the Amazon, US President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use long-range missiles against Russian territory. These missiles are highly destructive and are supplied by the US. Previously, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, had suggested that if this were to happen, he might use nuclear weapons in response.
Directly from the Amazon, US President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use long-range missiles against Russian territory.
What did he gain by holding off on this decision for so long? Why is he changing his mind now? He gained nothing by waiting. What changed his mind was that they finally broke him by being incessant. He made such an effort to say no to this one thing so now when he gave in its proof that Biden was a weak willed worm who will submit if you pester him long enough.
I think it's in response to last night's Russian aerial attack on Ukraine. Macron's latest statements today about wanting "to push Russia to stop fighting" and stating that "Putin doesn't want peace" due to this attack, point towards that reasoning. Rybar stated that it was one of the largest aerial assualts Russia has conducted since WW2. Hundreds of missiles and drones of all types were fired, and 20+ strategic bombers, including the Tu-95 and Tu-160, were deployed and launched cruise missiles. This is the first use of the Tu-160 in the Ukraine war. It was an escalatory strike by Russia against Ukrainian energy infrastructure in a manner that was not done before, even attacking substations and power lines connected to nuclear power plants, forcing them to reduce generation capacity to between 40-90% of maximum output. The USA/NATO will respond in turn with their own escalation, and decisions around long range weapons appear to be part of that.
It's important to note that Russia had the capability to carry out such a strike since day 1 of the war, but chose not to. The US and NATO also had the capability to use Ukraine to conduct long range strikes inside Russian territory using their weapons for quite some time, but also chose not to do so. A lot of the times in warfare, attacking is not about having the capability to perform an action, but about the potential consequences associated with that action. Russia has now decided to escalate from a position of strength with regards to how the war is going in Ukraine, with constant territorial gains. They clearly believe that they can survive the consequences of such an escalation, otherwise they wouldn't have carried out last night's attack. Russia can also escalate further in response to US/NATO escalation if Russia chooses to.
What are rubber tappers
I assume people who harvest rubber from the trees
When people were trying to save them? Is this some deep lore of 1950s
I'm not totally sure what biden is trying to say in the quote honestly. I'm sure he tried his best.
The Right-Wing hate Rubber Tappers because they have huge trade unions, and works with Natives in protecting the Amazon Rainforest from Ranchers and Colonists (Far-Right people want to kill all natives because they say there aren't natives but people pretending to own the land, theres a whole far-right book about it).
i think he's personally relating to the rainforest as an 'issue' through the lense of labor, before expanding it to environmentalism and climate change. lol.
Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, better known as Chico Mendes. was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader, and environmentalist. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and Indigenous people. He was assassinated by a rancher on December 22, 1988. The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade or ICMBio), a body under the jurisdiction of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, is named in his honor.
His dad was also a communist member and took part in the Communist Revolts and Attempt Coup against Vargas in 1930's. Chico Mendes was close friend of Lula da Silva and Marina Silva, and member of the Workers' Party (Lula's Party).
Maria Osmarina Marina, known as Marina Silva, is a Brazilian politician and environmentalist, currently serving as Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, a position she previously held from 2003 to 2008. She is the founder and former spokeswoman of the Sustainability Network (REDE). Following Lula's victory over Bolsonaro in the 31 October runoff, he announced Silva's return as Minister of the Environment on 29 December. In addition, Silva was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a member of REDE for São Paulo. Silva is a descendant of Portuguese and black African ancestors in both her maternal and paternal lines. She was one of eleven children in a community of rubber tappers on the Bagaço rubber tree plantation (Portuguese Seringal Bagaço), in the western state of Acre. Growing up, she survived five bouts of malaria in addition to cases of hepatitis and metal poisoning.
Rubber tapping is the process by which latex is collected from a rubber tree. Rubber tapping is not damaging to the forest, as it does not require the tree to be cut down in order for the latex to be extracted. Jungle rubber is essentially old secondary forest, strongly resembling the primary forest. Its species' richness is about half that of the primary forest.