Image is of the Herðubreið tuya in northeast Iceland, formed when ice sheets covered Iceland thousands of years ago. It's not really relevant to the Grindavik situation but I think they look neat. The title also doesn't make much sense but I saw the pun and took it.

Off in Iceland, different kinds of tunnels are causing problems. Underneath the town of Grindavik in southwestern Iceland, not far from the capital of Reykjavik, tens of thousands of earthquakes are portending the movement of magma in tunnels underneath the peninsula, which could breach the surface and cause an eruption. The 4000 residents of the town have been evacuated as the magma has risen to less than a kilometer below the surface.TRG

Icelandic volcanism is pretty fascinating, with the country sitting on the mid-Atlantic ridge, the birthing line of new oceanic crustal rock running right down the Atlantic ocean for many thousands of kilometers, as well as a hotspot, an upwelling of mantle material of debated origin which also feeds otherwise-inexplicable volcanism in the middle of tectonic plates, like Yellowstone and Hawaii.

An additional factor here is the presence of glaciers. When a volcano erupts underneath a glacier, the melting water cools the lava rapidly, causing features usually seen in volcanoes that erupt under the sea like pillow basalts, but also unique features like tuyas, which are steep-sided but flat-topped volcanoes. The rapid melting of water can also cause glacial floods called jökulhlaups.

Icelandic volcanoes have had significant regional and even global impacts in the past. In 2010, the volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which was a volcano covered by an ice cap, erupted and the ash cloud spread across Europe, causing airline disruption for about a month which caused nearly $2 billion in total losses for airline companies - though this seems pretty quaint compared to the pandemic's impact on airlines in retrospect. Back in the 1780s, the Laki volcano killed a quarter of the Icelandic population due to sulphur dioxide causing massive crop failure and cattle death. This eruption's impacts spread to Europe and beyond, causing notable worldwide temperature drops and thus crop failures and may well have been a contributing factor to the outbreak of the French Revolution, which obviously heralded the death of the feudal order and the eventual primacy of capitalism in its place. That being said, any eruption at Grindavik is very probably not going to have any significant worldwide impacts - there are over a hundred volcanoes already in Iceland, and regular climate change is doing a great job at causing mayhem right now anyway. It's also still possible that there won't be an eruption at all, at least not in the short to medium term.

Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

The Country of the Week is Iceland! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

This week's update is here!

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

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.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    UN Security Council adopts Malta-led resolution about Israel and Gaza

    Resolution calls for pauses in the Israel-Gaza war to allow safe passage of aid.

    The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday adopted a Malta-drafted resolution calling for “extended humanitarian pauses” in the war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.

    There were 12 votes in favour, three abstentions – the USA, UK and Russia – and no votes against. Moments earlier, a Russian amendment seeking to include mention of a ceasefire was defeated.

    It is the first resolution about the ongoing conflict passed by the UN’s highest organ, following four previous, failed attempts to reach an agreement on a consensual resolution.

    The resolution calls for the release of all hostages, especially children, being held by Hamas and for an urgent days-long ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

    It also calls for the evacuation of the sick and injured and for all sides to refrain from depriving those in Gaza of basic services, which have been heavily restricted during the conflict.

    Although Malta has called for a ceasefire in the region, the resolution stops short of using that word and instead calls for "extended humanitarian pauses and corridors" to allow aid, repairs and the evacuation of the sick and young.

    Nor does the resolution make reference to the Hamas attack that provoked the conflict or Israel's retaliatory strikes and ground offensive, though Malta’s ambassador to the UN, Vanessa Frazier, condemned both before the vote.

    The resolution’s careful wording reflects the divided nature of the UNSC and its members’ differing perspectives of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, with Russia and China on one side and the United States on the other.

    The United States opposed any use of the term "ceasefire," diplomats said. Other terms floated were "truce" and "pause."

    Malta's ambassador to the UN, Vanessa Frazier, described the resolution as "an important first step" and said all 15 council members had “the desire to save life and provide respite” to civilians.

    “The Security Council members are united in wanting a voice,” she said.

    Foreign Affairs Minister Ian Borg said Malta's efforts "were guided by the need to have a humanitarian resolution. We are determined to continue working towards peace."

    There was less praise from representatives of the conflict's two protagonists, however.

    The Palestinian representative criticised the resolution for falling short of calling for a ceasefire and said that the Israeli foreign minister had already declared that Israel would not implement the resolution and would continue with its course of action.

    “So, what are you going to do about it?” the Palestinian representative asked UNSC members.

    Palestine, however, also thanked Malta for having managed to bring about consensus on the "small, modest resolution".

    Israel’s representative was vocally displeased, for different reasons.

    Describing the resolution as “detached from reality on the ground,” he argued that Israel was doing all it could to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, while Hamas was “doing everything it could to make it worse.

    “Hamas does not care about your resolutions or demands, it murders Gazans as they try to evacuate,” the Israeli representative said.

    • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      “The Security Council members are united in wanting a voice,” she said.

      ???

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

        It’s time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day. Every day it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down.