Bulletins and News Discussion from March 25th to March 31st, 2024 - Friendship Ended With Taiwan, Now China Is My New Best Friend - COTW: Honduras
Bulletins and News Discussion from March 25th to March 31st, 2024 - Friendship Ended With Taiwan, Now China Is My New Best Friend - COTW: Honduras
Image is from this Reuters article.
This week marks the one year anniversary of Honduras ceasing to recognize Taiwan and instead only recognizing China. Over that time period, China and Honduras have gone through several rounds of negotiating a free trade agreement, with trade expanding. Additionally, they have just signed a $275 million cooperation agreement, providing education infrastructure for Honduras.
The other major news piece relevant to Honduras is the battle against Prospera, a US-based crypto libertarian firm that sought to buy a private island in order to create an ancap paradise, in which Bitcoin would be legal tender. In 2022, Honduras killed the island's special status that made the deal possible, and so Prospera is seeking $11 billion in compensation.
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 Honduras! 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 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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I read a couple essays on euro security today that I think are worth sharing
On the role of project ukraine in the mythos of the EU vs European nations. Basically, why are EU-philes still so adamantly pro project ukraine despite the clear writing on the wall?
https://www.compactmag.com/article/why-europe-sacrificed-ukraine/
In this internal contest, Ukraine is merely a pawn: Ukrainians may be motivated by the defense of their own national sovereignty, but in reality, they are being sacrificed to elevate the new lords of Europe and further their quixotic dreams of a European superstate.
The second is by some boomer (I think) milblogger about western wilful ignorance on project ukraine and how western lib politicians are likely to grapple with the project's failure, with particular focus on France and france's role in europe. This essay is wordier and I think the author greatly overestimates the ability of the euros to get out of the American orbit, but I thought the schematic speech for any western leader to give in the wake of obvious Russian victory was bang on.
Forgot to add the link to the second one
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/france-saves-europe
spoiler
If I were writing a speech for a western leader to be delivered in 2025, it would probably consist of the following.
After the end of the Cold War the West looked forward to peaceful and constructive relationships with the new Russia, and for some time this seemed possible .
However with the arrival of Putin in power it became clear that recovery of the old Soviet territories and further expansion was back on the menu.
Nonetheless the West persisted in trying to maintain peaceful coexistence in spite of Putin’s aggressive and threatening remarks at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, and his attempt to undermine the traditional convention that states can join and leave international organisations as they wish.
However with the arrival of Putin in power it became clear that Moscow had decided on all-out war. No democratic government could have accepted such terms and no parliament would have ratified them.
The war which the West tried so hard to avoid began in February 2022, and has turned into a military disaster for the Russians, because of the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian forces and the unstinting and generous support given by democracies around the world. Russia has managed to capture only a quarter of the country at a terrible cost.
However Russia remains a dangerous and unpredictable adversary and the West must now take steps to strengthen its own defences to deter or protect against further Russian aggression.
Aurelien is a frequent poster in the naked capitalism forums. I think their background is in the diplomatic service, not military though. You’re spot on about the boomer takes otherwise.