Image is of the drying Canelon Grande Reservoir in Uruguay as the country battles three consecutive years of drought, its worst in nearly a century.

Quoting every country and region that is currently suffering under unprecedented climatic conditions and posting every graph showing extremely concerning things happening would make this preamble way too long, so I'm gonna keep it short and merely say that, holy shit, the consequences of fossil fuel executives' actions are looking real fucking bad.

Hundreds of millions of people, if not billions, are currently enduring higher than average temperatures sometimes reaching up 48 degrees Celsius or 120 degrees Fahrenheit or even beyond. Drought is putting pressure on water supplies basically everywhere around the world. And El Nino is activating, which will only do further damage.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.

This week's first update is here in the comments.

This week's second and third update have done the Dragonball Z fusion dance and created this long-ass thing that took me... a while to get done.

Links and Stuff

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Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists

Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can, thank you.

Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins

Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.

Moon of Alabama, which tends to have decent analysis. Avoid the comment section.

Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources. Beware of chuddery.

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 journalist reporting in the warzone.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Telegram Channels

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

Pro-Russian

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 still quite reactionary in terms of gender and sexuality and race, so beware). 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 ~ Another 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's army.

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

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.

Last week's discussion post.

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]M
    ·
    1 year ago

    Update for July 17th

    Takeaways:

    • The world is on fire.
    • Europe's shift to the Pacific continues, as the UK and France (among others) get more involved with the economics and military situation over there, while the EU clearly thinks they're being extremely clever and sneaky by telling the Chinese that none of this is directed towards them. Meanwhile, the debate over whether China's economy is doing well or badly continues to rage on.
    • Occupied Korea continues to lick America's boots, with them casting off any doubts about whether to supply Ukraine with military equipment after their president went on a visit to Zelensky. Hopefully their sacrifice of military equipment to the Lancet gods reduces some of the pressure on the DPRK?
    • Russia's involvement in both the Middle East and Africa is set to increase shortly, with some diplomatic moves, electricity grid integrations, and summits coming in the near-future. It's still unclear what Putin is gonna do at the BRICS summit what with the ICC warrant, a month out from the date.
    • Ukraine's hit the Crimean bridge again - details are still coming in but it doesn't look too awful, the overall structure looks to be intact still. There will be some interesting questions to answer about whether it will affect the military situation, how it was allowed to happen a second time, and whether there will be a Russian response, but we'll probably see that being argued about this week. Seems to me if you can't take out the rail line, all you're really doing is ruining people's holidays, and, well, killing civilians.
    expand

    Global

    NATO: With the euphoria receding over Sweden joining NATO, the bickering has returned, with Erdogan wanting Turkey to join the EU before they let Sweden in, while Sweden wanting to be let into NATO before they let Turkey in to the EU. Regardless of what happens, Turkish parliament won't be allowing Sweden in to NATO before October. And, again, all this doesn't really matter anyway because the US and Sweden already have deals in place. NC

    Europe

    Europe is facing a heatwave, with perhaps the hottest temperatures ever recorded, with visitors from equitorial Africa saying that it's hotter in Europe than it is back home.ENEN

    The European Aluminium industry group has warned against placing sanctions on the Russian aluminium giant Rusal, as due to its strategic importance, it would do more harm to Europe than Russia. This means that it will be in the next sanctions package.RT

    Wang Yi met with Josep Borrell, who said that the EU's de-risking does not target China and the EU has no intention of hindering China's development, which is such an absurd lie that I'm unsure why it was even said.GT

    United Kingdom: PM Sunak will force English universities to limit the number of students taking "low-value" degrees, which are defined as ones that do not have a high proportion of graduates that get professional jobs, continue into master's degrees, or start a business.Euractiv

    Food prices have risen by 25% since 2021, with some foodstuffs rising as much as 175%.AM

    The UK has joined the Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), making it the first European nation to join it since its inception in 2018 and giving them more access to a 500-million consumer-collective market - I assume they are going to physically move the island over to the Pacific as well.AM

    France: Over two thirds of French reservoirs are under their monthly averages, after they were unable to sufficiently refill after the summer of 2022.Euractiv

    Italy: The president of the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce has said that Russian buyers should be able to pay for Italian goods in rubles, and that the Italian business lobby in Russia is working on a mechanism to achieve this.RTAM

    Spain: The polls are not looking great for the left in the elections next Sunday, with the right wing increasing their vote share substantially.Euractiv

    Western Asia

    Occupied Palestine: AntiWar discusses the new generation of Palestinians fighters as they resist Israeli occupation, exemplified by the attack on Jenin, and how the Palestinian Authority has decreasing amounts of leverage over them.AW

    Syria: US forces and allied militias have mobilized in eastern Syria against government-controlled areas as they try and cut off Iranian supply lines to Hezbollah in Lebanon.PD

    Saudi Arabia: Japan and Saudi Arabia are attempting to strengthen ties and plan a strategic dialogue as Japan wishes to ensure a stable supply of energy.ANN

    Iran: Iran will soon begin to exchange electricity with Russia via a connection with Azerbaijan, and later through Georgia and Armenia, to create a regional network for energy stability.RT

    Russia waded into a territorial dispute on three islands between the UAE and Iran, taking the side of the UAE (similarly to China, for what it's worth), which has prompted some criticism from Iran.MEE

    Central Asia

    Russia: The government will sign security agreements with African countries at the summit in St. Petersburg on July 27-28th, including co-operation in space and anti-terrorism, as well as a "political declaration".RT

    Russia has temporarily nationalized the assets of Carlsberg and Danone after they pulled out of the country.Euractiv

    Eastern Asia and Oceania

    China: Is the economic recovery failing or succeeding? China-based media discusses it, with SCMP looking nervously at slower Q2 growth than expected (a mere 6.3%!) and rising unemployment rates, while Global Times points to Q2's GDP rising at the fastest rate in two years, with encouraging infrastruture investment, consumption, and exports - with officials noting that post-pandemic challenges in other economies lasted a year and China is only half a year removed from the end of its pandemic measures.

    China has achieved a grain harvest of 146 million tons this summer, down by less than a percent from last year despite adverse weather.GT

    Tropical Storm Talim is nearing Hong Kong.ANN

    China has finished the construction of the core module of the world's first commercial onshore small modular reactor, called Linglong One. The rest of the reactor is expected to be finished in 2026, and will produce enough energy to meet the needs of over 500,000 households.SCMP

    Intel's CEO has finished his China trip, as the US chip giant continues to double down on China's market despite the ongoing tech war.SCMP

    Foreign policy chief Wang Yi has urged his Indian counterpart to ease restrictions on Chinese companies and not let the border dispute define their relationship.SCMP

    India: A new rail line connecting to Nepal has begun operations as part of India's Neighborhood First policy, hoping to boost trade and tourism.RT

    India and the UAE have agreed to settle trade in rupees and dirhams and have linked their instant payment systems.RT India is also in talks to use local currencies in deals with Indonesia.RT

    A Jacobin article on Modi's actions in Kashmir.

    Occupied Korea: After heading to Ukraine on a surprise visitAM, President Yoon made a pledge to expand the scale of military assistance to Ukraine, with $150 million in humanitarian aid planned this year following $100 million last year; I assume somebody close to him was threatened by the United States.GT

    The US, South Korea, and Japan are holding missile defence drills after the DPRK's ICBM launch.ANN

    Flooding has killed at least 22 people and 5000 have been forced to evacuate.EN

    Japan: China and Russia will dispatch naval and air forces to participate in military drills in the Sea of Japan.GT

    Philippines: France is opening an office in the Philippines by French defense company Naval Group, with the hope of exporting Scorpene-class submarines to their navy.ANN

    Australia: Construction insolvencies have hit a record high, with thousands of buyers out of pocket for unfinished homes.WSWS

    Africa

    Tunisia: The EU and Tunisia have signed an MoU on a comprehensive strategic partnership.TS

    Zimbabwe: China has been acquiring mining sites and constructing/upgrading them over the last couple years, and Zimbabwe's president is happy about the investment and how it will make his country a competitive environment in the future, and is looking forward to more investment.SCMP

    South Africa: Russia has declined a request by South Africa to abstain from sending Putin to the BRICS summit in late August, with the situation about what exactly is going to happen still unclear.BNE

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]M
      ·
      1 year ago
      expand

      North America

      United States: Nearly 120 million people are under extreme weather alerts due to extreme heat caused by a heat dome, while the northeast and some parts of the south faces abnormally heavy rains.CD These storms have cancelled thousands of flights.PD

      The next US coronavirus wave is happening, with an estimated 280,000 daily infections.WSWS

      The JPMorgan Chase saga with Jeffrey Epstein's victims continues despite it being "settled".WSoP

      Canada: The Red Clarion looks at missing and murdered indigneous women and how they relate to the class struggle in Canada of the native population against state oppression, as the government continues to accidentally dig up - sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally - the history of their terrorist campaign against indigneous people.RC

      Latin America

      As the CELAC-EU summit is being held, a People's Summit is beginning in parallel, organized by European and Latin American left-wing organizations and representatives.TS

      Ecuador: The government is importing rice from other countries on the continent due to shortfalls from crop issues, with potentially 200,000 tons needed.MP

      Brazil: Lula has pledged to turn abandoned public buildings into low-income housing units, signing into law a bill providing for the construction by 2026 of 2 million buildings.MP

      Argentina: Extremely cold temperatures are hitting 17 provinces.MP

      The War Against The West

      The Western Front: Ukraine's damaged the Crimean bridge again, killing at least 2 civilians. One road span has been destroyed and another partly damaged, though the underlying supports are undamaged. Last time, rail traffic - the part important to the military - was going within like 8 hours, and the road span was reconstructed in a few months.RT

      Putin has once again said that Ukraine has had no success with their counteroffensive, which is essentially true so far.RT Additionally, at least 34 Bradleys, or a third of the Bradleys supplied to Ukraine, have been destroyed, damaged, or abandoned according to Western sources.RT

      The Pentagon is dragging their feet on giving F-16s over to Ukraine for obvious reasons, with them stating, in the understatement on the century, that "the Russians still possess some air defense capability." My brother in christ, their air defense capability is like an order of magnitude superior to that of the combined West.MoA

      Russia has halted the Black Sea grain deal, which allowed Ukrainian grain exports to leave the country via ships without fear of being destroyed by Russia. The Kremlin has said that the deal may be resumed once the West upholds it part of the deal about allowing Russia's grain and fertilizer to be transported without sanctions, as Putin has allowed himself to be strung along for a year without any progress being made by the West on their promises.RTEN

      Jacobin notes that progressive dissent on the war has suddenly returned after a long hiatus, though I have no fear that the rebelling Democrats will return to licking boots and sobbing about how they were actually forced to push thousands of homeless people into the MAGA Human Blender constructed in 2026 under Trump's second presidency, and it's what they would have wanted anyway.

      Retrospectives, Analysis, History, Theory, and Technology

      Richard Wolff continues his protracted people's war against anti-China propaganda.MR

      Responsible Statecraft speculates that Erdogan has finally won over to the cause of the West.RS It also quotes that report saying that most of the US's allies surrounding China are rather reluctant to enter the fray if a war over Taiwan started, or even other countries like Korea.RS

      The Red Clarion looks at the increasing number of medical drug shortages, which is causing doctors to have to triage their patients and only try and cure the people that have the most chance of surviving. They quote from the FDA, which states that drug shortages are caused by 1) a lack of incentives for manufacturers to produce less profitable drugs; b) a lack of reward for manufacturers for "mature quality systems" that focus on continuous improvement and early detection of supply chain issues; and c) logistical and regulatory challenges. So, essentially, we need to abolish the market.RC

      Climate Change

      US Climate Envoy John Kerry has refuted the idea that US might pay for climate reparations after being asked by a sentient thumb if the US would have to pay other countries if they have floods or hurricanes, but said he supports the creation of a loss and damage fund as one of the objectives for Cop28.CCN

      Treated fuel exhaust from large ships, generated in compliance with international air pollution limits, is instead dumped into the sea.ICN

      The methane leaks from natural gas power make its emissions on par with coal, according to a new study casting doubts on its use as a bridge from coal to renewable energy.MR The methane and CO2 generated from dead organic matter piling up behind hydropower dams is more climatically impactful than imagined, and the inadvertent emissions of some hydropower plants can even rival that of fossil fuel plants, leading some scientists to believe that they cannot be part of the future renewable energy mix. In other news, the minerals required for solar and wind energy generation require massively harmful mines and quarries often in developing countries; nuclear energy produces emissions from the concrete, requires lots of increasingly precious water, and also produces nuclear waste which is harmful for thousands of years; and carbon capture and storage doesn't work, so once we rule all those out, we arrive at... people running in hamster wheels.ICN

      I Love My Trans Comrades!

      • boardbyboard [comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Also, there is a secret side agreement buried in the settlement. The victims will be bound by the terms of a Paragraph 10 of a “Confidential Term Sheet,” which was crafted during mediation negotiations, but we could find no such document in the court records. We contacted the three key attorneys for the Epstein victims, seeking this document, as well as the entire Management Committee of WilmerHale, consisting of 18 attorneys, and no one was forthcoming with an answer as to how it is legal to have a secret side agreement in a class action involving potentially more than 100 victims of Epstein – many of whom have been waiting for decades for the justice system in the United States to stop cutting deals with Epstein and his accomplices and enablers.

        This one stood out despite every paragraph in that article being worse than the previous

        • emizeko [they/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          as long as I get fed carrots that are almost as big as my torso