The Great Housing Mission of Venezuela, launched in 2011 by Hugo Chavez, is the most ambitious housing project in the country's history. This week, the 4,600,000th house was built, with a goal for 5 million homes by 2024 and beyond. The program has built 1,255 residential complexes on a total of 9,837 hectares, an area equivalent to six times the Swiss city of Geneva.
The program additionally provides social infrastructure like schools, subsidized food markets, and recreational and green spaces. Over 70% of constructions are self-managed by communities, with financial and logistics support from the government. Communities also provide each other with materials - from each according to their supplies, to each according to their needs. Russian, Chinese, and Belarusian companies have helped supply the program over the years.
In Antímano Parish in southwestern Caracas, a group of predominantly women came together in 2015 and trained in construction, cleared land, and then built apartments while under the pressure of food and materials shortages and electricity blackouts due to the United States' sanctions campaign.
Claudia Tisoy, a mother and self-trained plumber, said “This goes beyond building homes for our families, we are also building the future of our country, with women leading the way. This is what the socialist horizon is all about.”VA
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
This week's third update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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 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
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.
Update for July 24th
Takeaways:
The EU as a whole continues to decline, with various solutions ranging from "blame immigrants" to "blame gay people" to "blame trans people", or even "blame all three". The heatwaves and wildfires aren't helping things either. Spain's had their election and Poland and Russia are yelling at eachother while Lukashenko tries to stop WW3.
The US is sabotaging Yemen war negotiations. Israel's judicial plight continues, as they also try to kill Palestinians and wonder why they're facing consequences for their actions. Scandinavian fascists cannot stop being racist for 3 nanoseconds and Islamic countries are getting very angry at them.
China's digging a deep hole. Japan is already in a deep hole and wants a global natural gas reserve because they don't like Russia but have to make deals with them anyway. The US really likes South Korean companies and is investing in them about as much as they're investing in their own apparently.
New constitutions in Mali and the CAR. China has been reaffirming friendships with Kenya and Nigeria, though their exports from Africa are down (and exports to Africa are up).
Potentially bad news for Taiwan in Central America. Also bad news for Argentina because of IMF ghouls. Definitely bad news for penguins in Uruguay.
expand
Europe
The EU economic downturn continues in Q3 - bond yields are falling and PMI indices are still in contraction and getting worse.FT The UK's economic activity is also slowing down as the services PMI hits a six month low of 51.3, and the manufacturing index falls to a new low of 46.5.FT The UK's government has correspondingly decided that the solution is more racism MP and more child poverty.Jacobin EU electricity consumption could hit a 20 year low according to the IEA, due mostly to declining industrial output,[RT] and Europe could still face a very tough winter if Russia halts its remaining natural gas deliveries (which remain at the level of 2 billion cubic meters per month, about 6-7 times less than recent years.BNE (https://archive.ph/mjxYO) Belgium and Engie have agreed to extend the lives of two nuclear reactors in 2025-2026.Euractiv
The leader of the German center-right party CDU has said that they would have to co-operate with the AfD, the fascist party gaining support across the country, on a municipal level. Hey, I've seen this one before*removed externally hosted image*
Extreme heat is killing people in Italy as temperatures pass 40 degrees Celsius.Euractiv Last year in Italy was the hottest, driest year on record.PD There are wildfires on the Greek island of Rhodes, forcing thousands to evacuatePD, as the country experiences its worse heatwave in decades.PD Portugal is withdrawing from the Energy Charter Treaty, which allows companies in the energy sector to sue countries whose legislation puts their investments at risk.Bilaterals
Italian PM Meloni hosted nations from over 20 countries from the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Africa to try and slow unauthorised migration and tackle some of the pressures of driving people to leave their countries in the first place (good fucking luck with that, imperialist ghouls).Euractiv
Michael Roberts talks about the Spanish elections, in which the right wing did worse than we expected but better than we hoped.MR Jacobin also talks about it.Jacobin
Poland's PM is unhappy at Putin's statement that western Poland was a gift to them by Stalin - launching into a rant about how Stalin killed 100 quintillion people with his bare hands.RT
Ukraine is sitting atop something like $12 trillion worth of minerals relevant to the green industry, including 500,000 tonnes of lithium that is not being mined.FT At the same time, French mining experts say that even if new mines were to be opened in the EU today, the EU's strategic and critical mineral objectives would be near-impossible to achieve by 2030.Euractiv
Western Asia
Armenia's PM has warned that unless and until a peace treaty is signed with Azerbaijan, a new war is "very likely" over Nagorno-Karabakh.Euractiv
The Israeli military's Chief of Staff has warned that the unity of the army has dangerously deteriorated as a result of the thousands of reservists who have threatened to halt service in protest against the judicial overhaul.TC The US has pledged nearly $120 million to Arab normalization initiatives for Israel, encouraging Middle Eastern countries to solidify diplomatic ties.TC Protestors are blocking the road to the parliament building and getting shot with water cannons in retaliation.MEE
Saudi Arabia is giving $500 million to help finance Tunisia.TS The peace talks in Yemen have so far failed and efforts have been ceased due to the US insisting on terms that Yemen would not agree to.TC
The number of Syrian children suffering malnutrition has risen 48% from 2021-22 due to the economic blockade on the country, increases in food prices, loss of resources, and inflation of the Syrian pound - and 600,000 children are stunted and will soon suffer immune system disorders.AM Iran's "most powerful unit", the Imam Hossein Division founded by the late Qassem Soleimani, is reportedly planning attacks against the US and Israel in Syria.TC
Iraq and Iran have strongly condemned the descration of the Quran and flag burning in Denmark.AM Thousands are protesting in Iraq over the burning of the Quran in Sweden and Denmark.MEE German Defense Minister Pistorius has cancelled a trip to Iraq and Jordan due to security concerns after the Swedish embassy in Baghdad was set on fire.TC
Central Asia
The Russian central bank has increased its interest rates by 1% to 8.5%, as the neoliberals attempt to bring down the country from the inside.RT US sanctions are leading to increased Russia-China scientific co-operation, including in quantum technology.SCMP
Afghan citizens talk about the horrors of US cluster bombs in the wake of their delivery to Ukraine.PD Flooding in Afghanistan has killed 30 people over the last few days, with hundreds of houses destroyed or damaged.DW Flooding has killed 101 people and injured 200 more in Pakistan so far.CGTN Pakistan's petrol dealers announced a countrywide strike demanding that their profit margin be doubled.ANN
Eastern Asia and Oceania
China has carried out a trial run of the main rocket engine for its planned lunar mission.CGTN China has begun drilling another 10,000m (35,000 feet) well in search for natural gas, in one of (if not the) most difficult drilling projects in the world. (Holy shit, that's a deep fucking hole. That's deeper than Mount Everest is high.) SCMP A report from Renmin University has said that China should boost the yuan's international role.SCMP The state of China's food self-sufficiency is discussed, and the challenges that remain - factors like lack of advanced technologies/techniques, overexploitation of farmland, high dependence on soybean imports, uncertain global markets, climate change, and wasteage during transport and processing.SCMP^
Japan is proposing a plan to the IEA to create a global strategic natural gas reserve to guard against energy crunches, similar to current arrangements where countries have a 90-day oil reserve. My brother in christ, maybe don't cut off your cheap source of energy with nothing to replace it with for the sake of giving American boots a tonguebath?RT
Indian machinery exports to Russia and other CIS countries have tripled since last year.RT
South Korea is emerging as a pivotal ally for the US in the energy transition, with a third of announced investments in the IRA directed towards South Korean companies, a close second to America's investments in its own companies.ICN
300,000 children in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh are now enrolled in classrooms, with UNICEF appealing for funds to help their education.PD
A former Singaporean diplomat has said that the term "debt trap diplomacy" in relation to China is an insult to the intelligence of Global South countries.CGTN
The Philippines has lifted mandatory face mask and physical distancing rulesANN
expand
Malaysia's ruling coalition are on a political offensive to win back the northern state of Kedah in the August 12th state polls.ANN^
Fiji's doing austerity.WSWS
Africa
Putin has said ahead of the Russia-Africa Summit that Russian trade with African countries has hit $18 billion and yet could be much higher.RT China and Kenya agree to deepen Belt and Road co-operation,CGTN as has Ethiopia.CGTN Algeria has applied for BRICS membership and wants a $1.5 billion stake in the New Development Bank.TC Meanwhile, African exports to China have fallen by 12% in the first half of 2023 despite a push to buy more goods from Africa, while goods exported to Africa have risen, due to the economic slowdown in China and across the world.SCMP
The Central African Republic is to vote in a week in a referendum on a new draft constitution, which the opposition is against due to anti-democratic measures inside it.AN A month after the Mali constitution referendum, the council has confirmed that 97% (...hmm...) of the population voted to adopt the draft constitution, which strengthens the power of the president and gives special power to the armed forces, against the hopes of opposition groups.AN
80,000 people have been displaced in Nigeria after violence between farmers and herdsmen, which have killed 300 people so far.AN
Angola, one of Africa's largest oil producers, has little oil refining infrastructure and so imports fuel at high prices to power itself which cuts into the money they make from producing the oil in the first place - but they have a new oil refinery and others are planned (though there have been long delays).DW
North America
Dwindling demand is hitting the US shale patch as companies pull back and revenues slow down, with US oil output set to level off in the second half of the year.FT
Misdiagnoses kill nearly 400,000 people every year and disable a similar number.STAT
The smaller unions of Louisville, the headquarters of UPS and the location of UPS Worldport, the company against which the Teamsters may strike, are in support of the Teamsters.RNN
Latin America
Mexico has been hit with three sets of trade arbitration proceedings in the last few days from Canadian and US firms, all invoking NAFTA and USMCA.Bilaterals
Wind power is being installed in Antigua and Barbuda, which is already completely self-sufficient in energy production (and actually exports energy).TS
Nicaragua has proposed that Taiwan's permanent observer status be replaced with China, while a Guetamalan presidential contender is also proposing closer ties with China and away from Taiwan.SCMP The Supreme Electoral Triual of Guatemala has condemned the raid against it in search of evidence and records of the entity's personnel.TS
Venezuela's Maduro has celebrated the construction of the 4,600,000th house built through the Great Housing Mission, which has been promoted for the last 12 years.TS
Argentina is set to introduce tax and currency measures that will devalue the peso as part of an IMF deal.FT National production of lithium in Argentina will begin in September, with equipment for the factory supplied by China.MP
Lula has signed a decree that would bring down the number of guns for personal defence purposes from 4 to 2, and require permit applicants to demonstrate the effective need to acquire guns.MP
The War Against The West
Putin has said that Russia destroyed 15 Leopards and 20 Bradleys in a single day.RT Demining Ukraine will take over 700 years even without including the impact of the US sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, and the country is now the most mined in the world.RT Lukashenko has claimed that Wagner wants to invade Poland, as he showed maps about which directions Poland would attack Belarus as Polish brigades are increasingly brought to the border.EN
More sanctions on Russia.PD
Latin America Again Refuses to Fall In Line With the Collective West on Ukraine, This Time from BrusselsNC
Australia is hosting the Talisman Sabre war games, the largest Australian military exercises yet, with over 30,000 military personnel around the world taking part.WSWS Chinese experts have called it a paper tiger.GT The House and Senate are fighting over how much military aid to give Taiwan.SP
Responsible Statecraft is on the Korea conflict lately, with headlines: Can Washington discourage South Korea from wanting its own nukes?RS; Wake up: Pushing de-nuking on N.Korea is a dream with a nightmare endingRS; and US-Korea policy is ‘trapped in a pattern of cyclical amnesia'RS
Retrospectives, Analysis, History, Theory, and Technology
The Tricontinental's 29th Newsletter (by Vijay Prashad), this time on NATO.MR
Richard Wolff's analysis on the US's deindustrialization, how China cleverly benefited, and how overall capitalism is relocating away from the US to new centers of profit.SP
Since the start of the pandemic, the rate of new cases of Type 1 diabetes in children has risen by 14% in the first year and 27% in the second year, compared to the pre-pandemic period (when diabetes was already rising by 3-4% per year).WSWS
LGBTQIA+
Idaho families with transgender children are trying to stop the state's ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors.Advocate
Grindr employees are to unionize to create Grindr United with CWA, in part due to the CEO's prior backing of anti-LGBTQ+ politicians.Advocate
Religious chuds marched in Botswana's capital against legislation to make same-sex relations legal. AN
Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Berlin in the 45th Berlin Pride Parade.DW
For trans liberation and social change - Shon FayeGL
Climate and the Environment
Thousands of Megallanic penguins have washed up on the coast of Uruguay, with most appearing to have starved to death due to human overfishing and bad weather.RT
A comprehensive dataset of Antarctic ice sheet thickness and bed topography has been created for the first time.MP
A new federal report on sun-dimming technologies and how they might be implemented is concerning scientists who do not want any of that to happen.ICN
Indian climate weekly news.Mongabay India's flooding has been exacerbated due to outdated drainage systems which need desilting, and exploited wetlands and waterbodies.[Mongabay](https://archive.ph/bZiEy
Analysis of how the climate crisis and environmental destruction are hitting several African countries - such as the Ivory Coast, Ghana, and the DRC.MR
I Love My Trans Comrades!
This is how the Ukraine conflict becomes WW3 isn't it?