Bulletins and News Discussion from September 16th to September 22nd, 2024 - This Megathread Is Dedicated To The Brave Mujahideen Fighters of Afghanistan - COTW: Afghanistan
Bulletins and News Discussion from September 16th to September 22nd, 2024 - This Megathread Is Dedicated To The Brave Mujahideen Fighters of Afghanistan - COTW: Afghanistan
I know the Rambo title card is a hoax.
The COTW was chosen in the wake of the aborted sequel to the attempted assassination of Trump being performed by a guy who is VERY enthusiastic about Ukraine, to the point of trying to sneak Afghan soldiers into Ukraine by setting up a house in Pakistan to house them and then further transport them. He also apparently offered to send thousands of Afghan soldiers to Haiti to help them combat gang violence. Whomst among us doesn't have the numbers of thousands of Afghan soldiers on speed-dial. Do you reckon there's a group chat?
Anyway, while there is still no official recognition of the Taliban's government by any country, China has taken a different course than the late USSR and the US - forming economic in-roads, rather than trying their own invasion. This has been a big boon for the struggling country, with various mines and oil and agriculture deals helping keep things barely afloat. A total disintegration of the social fabric of Afghanistan is not in the interest of any of the powers that border it - China, Pakistan, and Iran, with Russia not too far away - so an interesting dynamic of helping-without-official-recognition has been established. I wonder who will be the first country to fully recognize them?
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 Afghanistan! 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 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.
You're viewing a single thread.
Venezuela: MEPs recognise Edmundo González as President
The EU should do its utmost to ensure that Edmundo González Urrutia, the legitimate and democratically elected President of Venezuela, can take office on 10 January 2025.
In a resolution adopted on Thursday 19 September by 309 votes in favour, 201 against and 12 abstentions, Parliament “strongly condemns and fully rejects the electoral fraud orchestrated by the regime-controlled National Electoral Council, which refused to make public the official result.” MEPs recognise Edmundo González Urrutia as the country’s legitimate and democratically elected president, and María Corina Machado as the leader of the democratic forces in Venezuela. They also strongly condemn the Venezuelan Government’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Mr González.
Article
MEPs highlight that despite repeated calls from the international community, the Venezuelan regime has failed to respect the 2023 Barbados Agreement between the Maduro government and the opposition in relation to the presidential election, making a free and fair election impossible.
MEPs note that reports from international election observation missions clearly state that the Venezuelan presidential election of 28 July 2024 did not meet international standards of electoral integrity. They also condemn in the strongest possible terms the murders, harassment, violations and arrests perpetrated against the democratic opposition, the Venezuelan people, and civil society, calling for an end to systematic human rights violations.
Parliament urges the EU to reinstate sanctions against the members of the National Electoral Council. It calls for the prolongation of regime sanctions and for expanding their scope to apply targeted sanctions through the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime against Nicolás Maduro and his inner circle.
MEPs welcome the role that the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico are playing and urge regional actors and the international community to exert maximum pressure on Maduro’s regime and his inner circle to accept the democratic will of the Venezuelan people, recognising Edmundo González Urrutia as the legitimate and democratically elected President. If this does not happen, Parliament warns that a renewed migratory exodus to other countries in the region will follow, similar to that which has led close to eight million Venezuelans to flee the country in recent years.
international community
Euros need to learn that nobody gives a flying fuck what they think
The left, the greens and most succdems voted against. At least that's something.
greens and most succdems voted against
Now that's surprising
Really surprised at European Socdems being pragmatic with Venezuela and PSUV. I guess even they know it's useless to recognize an imaginary goverment.
who would have thought you could do a farce of the Guaidó farce
I mean, it's been long enough they could just release the vote counts by district, right? It's probably better than the right-wing getting control but still, I was hoping they would have released those sooner rather than later, especially since Machado's proof of pictures of voting receipts without signatures and stuff wasn't very compelling either, but I guess it's just never going to happen.
I mean they probably will eventually release it. But idk when. Seems like everyone forgot about Venezuela to focus on Israel, Ukraine and the US elections.