Bulletins and News Discussion from February 26th to March 3rd, 2024 - Breaking The Siege Of Omdurman - COTW: Sudan
Bulletins and News Discussion from February 26th to March 3rd, 2024 - Breaking The Siege Of Omdurman - COTW: Sudan
The war in Sudan has so far been marked by a lot of incompetency and mismanagement by government forces (the SAF). After months of bitter fighting, in late 2023, the opposing Rapid Support Forces suddenly expanded their control towards the southeast of Khartoum after not a lot of resistance, most notably taking the city of Wad Madani. This led the SAF supporters and officials to panic and point fingers at each other about what the hell the army is even doing, while RSF soldiers looted the city.
These victories led to a short period in late December and early January where diplomacy and peace talks were considered, but such attempts fell apart. The leader of the RSF visited various African countries, including meeting Paul Kagame in Rwanda, to boost his legitimacy. Then, the RSF attacked into South Kordofan and consolidated their hold on other areas.
The Sudanese capital of Khartoum sits on a river which divides it from the city to its west, Omdurman (see the post image). The SAF and RSF have been fighting over this grand urban area for the whole war, with the RSF holding most of Khartoum (with an entirely cut-off SAF force holding on in the center), with a similarly cut-off SAF force also in eastern Omdurman, up against the river. For 10 months, this force has been under siege - but no longer. In perhaps the first actual W of the war for the SAF, they finally managed to break the siege a week ago, pouring supplies in. This leaves a section of the RSF now cut off, though Omdurman is still not under full SAF control (and, who knows, the whole situation could once again go badly for the SAF).
Meanwhile, the Sudanese socioeconomic situation has completely collapsed, with potentially a 20% fall in GDP and 8 million people displaced, with 2 million from Khartoum alone. 18 million Sudanese, or about a third of the population, is in acute hunger, and 20 million children are out in school. The refugees streaming out of the country are causing knock-on effects in neighorboring countries like Chad. Nobody is even really counting the dead anymore.
Red is the government forces, the SAF. Blue is the RSF opposition. Other colours are various factions.
The Country of the Week is Sudan! 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.
You're viewing a single thread.
Lula calls Bolsonaro a "coward" and mocks call for "amnesty"
In a harsh message to Bolsonaro, Lula said that his opponent was "cowardly" and didn't have the courage to carry out a coup d'état
Former President Jair Bolsonaro's (Liberal Party) request for amnesty for the coup plotters arrested on January 8 was mocked by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers' Party). On Tuesday night (27 February), in an interview the president dismissed the possibility of the Executive branch taking the initiative for a measure that would benefit the imprisoned Bolsonaro supporters and called his opponent a "coward".
"Are you asking for amnesty? Do you want to erase the nonsense you've done? The nonsense is that he [Bolsonaro] chickened out, thought up the coup, didn't have the courage," Lula told journalist Kennedy Alencar.
The possibility of Lula's government proposing an "amnesty" to Congress was raised by Bolsonaro in an interview. But he admitted that this is a "very difficult" scenario. "I know that Parliament is the body that decides this issue, but if it comes from the Executive, it would be very welcome," he said.
That wasn't enough to convince Lula. The president pointed out that, for the "barbarities he has done", Bolsonaro should submit to the legal process to which every citizen is entitled in a democracy, including the "presumption of innocence" which, he repeated, he did not have during the Lava Jato process, in reference to the operation led by former judge and now senator Sergio Moro.
"First you'll be judged, you've committed a lot of barbarity. You will be judged, appreciated. You'll have your defense lawyer. I just want you to have the presumption of innocence that I didn't have. I want you to be able to say what you did and didn't do. It's your right, a right of democracy. And that's what I guarantee my best friend and my worst enemy: the right to a full defense," said Lula.
President Lula da Silva then went on to say that his opponent "chickened out" and didn't have the courage to carry out a coup d'état.
"Are you asking for amnesty? Do you want to erase the nonsense you've done? The nonsense is that he chickened out, thought up the coup, didn't have the courage. He left for the US in advance, thinking that it [the coup] would happen, that society would all leave terrified and he would come back anointed by the masses. And that's not what happened. What happened is that the institutions took responsibility for democracy and you are now in the process of being investigated," he said.
Finally, Lula also criticized Bolsonaro for the fact that the former president kept quiet during his statement to the Federal Police about an alleged criminal organization that was plotting a coup d'état in 2022.
Although he himself used the artifice in April 2019, at a hearing before the PF in Curitiba, where he was being held, as columnist Guilherme Amado, from Metrópoles, recalled.
"I know that when a guy is a coward, he doesn't talk. When the guy is a coward and goes to give evidence, his lawyer says: 'Don't say anything'. And I know that he went there and kept his mouth shut," said Lula.
"Because he talks nonsense all day long, when he was president it was morning, noon and night. Now in the process, he comes in all thin, not wanting to talk. So that's what's going to happen, he's going to be investigated, he's going to give evidence and one day he'll be tried. If he's innocent, he'll be innocent," he concluded.
Damn, lula taking no prisoners to lulag (they are full, my country yearns for freedom, pls mr. trump sen goldcorp
)He learned.
Gulag this clown already Lula.
lulag*