Image features Haitian Creole, meaning in English: "Let's Join Hands To Remove Haiti From The Boot Of Domination-Occupation!"

Welcome to the first news megathread of 2024! Last year saw rather little territorial movement in Ukraine (though shocking levels of attrition), and while BRICS has made some important moves, such as the upcoming expansion, there's no massive anti-imperialist offensive yet for us to really analyze. Instead, a lot of things have been going on behind the scenes, with the anti-hegemonic axis of China, Russia, Iran, and others forming a lot of bilateral currency deals as they distance themselves from the dollar. This all culminated in a rather boring year, or so I had thought until October 7th. The courage and heroism of the Gazan Resistance showed us that the imperialists truly are paper tigers, and Ansarallah demonstrated that American naval control is more illusory than the likes of John Bolton would like to admit.

This year will almost certainly be even more interesting and horrific. Debt across the developing world is at record levels, and the incoming hurricane that is the global recession not just on the horizon, but rapidly moving inland. Russia seems to once again be escalating in Ukraine with the return of large missile strikes, and the Zionist entity is failing to make much progress against Hamas, let alone Hezbollah, let alone Iran - instead vying for civilian bombings and propaganda campaigns (e.g. wedding proposals and drawing stars of David in Gaza to prove just how not mad and not owned they are, as their soldiers shit their pants due to insufficient military preparation and brigades are withdrawn due to the tremendous casualties they are experiencing). I'm sure there will be other sudden events that will occur this year. Here's my bingo grid:

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In the midst of all this, it's easy to forget the other underdog nation on the other side of the world from Palestine - Haiti. Since I last covered them, about half a year ago, the UN was on the verge of allowing a Kenyan police force to enter Haiti to "restore order", as the country is in a chaotic, perhaps potentially revolutionary situation. This has been described by various Haitian analysts and experts as essentially a US military force in blackface - white blows from a black hand - and Kenya's president, Ruto, has received a lot of aid from the US because of their willingness to step up, including a five year military deal. It took a while longer than I thought for the vote to occur, but on October 2nd, the UNSC allowed Kenya to do this (Russia and China abstained). However, the Kenyan Supreme Court needs to confirm that this is constitutional, and will give their verdict by January 26th. Many Kenyan lawyers and opposition leaders say that this is blatantly not constitutional, but given all the US aid on the line, breaking the constitution might be worth it to Ruto, whatever the backlash.

From the article from which much of the above information has been sourced:

But Washington now has its hands full with other problems. Its proxy war against Russia via Ukraine is going very badly, a fact that even the U.S. mainstream media is now forced to acknowledge. Meanwhile, the successful Oct. 7 uprising by Palestinian fighters against Israeli occupiers has apparently blindsided both the U.S. empire and its foremost client state. The entire Arab world and Global South are both horrified and outraged by Israel’s ever-growing war crimes, as over 20,000 Palestinians, half of them children, have been slaughtered and starved. Meanwhile, the dysfunction in Washington is deepening, Biden’s approval rating is plummeting, and the U.S. economy is lurching toward another crash.

All this means that Haiti may finally catch a break. The desperation in Haiti is very intense but so is the apprehension of and indignation against another foreign intervention. That resistance continues in the streets of Haiti and its diaspora.

Viva Haiti!

The weekly update is here on the website.

Your Tuesday briefing is here on the website and here in the comments.

The Country of the Week is Haiti! 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

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.

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.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Ecuador News:

    The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, announced at the beginning of last week what the questions would be in the popular referendum, which was his campaign promise.

    One of the questions, for example, would be for the country's armed forces to act in public security, which is currently prohibited by the country's constitution, except in exceptional cases.

    This would be done through "preventive" action and "controls".

    Another question would aim to prohibit the arrests or house arrests of members of the armed forces, national police and prison officers, while investigations into alleged abuses, in cases of actions "with the use of force", are ongoing.

    In short, this has been much criticized, because according to experts it would be money wasted, since almost all of the proposed questions could/should go through the country's National Assembly, as they are constitutional issues

    And if they were approved by the National Assembly, with the required quorum, they wouldn't need to go to a referendum. However, if they do pass a referendum, before or after the vote, the issues must be analyzed by the Assembly, to avoid legal limbo.

    Finally, if all the procedures are followed, and the Constitutional Court gives a favorable opinion on the questions, the consultation would take place between March and April of this year.

    The greatest possibility is that the court will approve, subject to the approval of the Assembly, either before or after the consultation.

    Link (In Spanish)

    The eleven questions proposed by Noboa are the following:

    1. Do you agree that the Armed Forces initiate actions to prevent and eradicate the activity of transnational criminal organizations that operate within and outside the national territory, according to the annex to question 1?
    1. Do you agree with the Armed Forces permanently controlling arms, ammunition, explosives and accessories in the routes, roads, ways and corridors authorized for the entrance to the social rehabilitation centers?
    1. Do you agree that the members of the Armed Forces, the National Police and the Security and Penitentiary Surveillance Corps should not be deprived of their freedom, or that they should be placed under house arrest, while the investigation or criminal process for their acts executed with the use of force lasts, reforming the Organic Integral Penal Code according to the annex of question 3?
    1. Do you agree with increasing the penalties for the crimes of (I) terrorism and its financing, (II) illicit production and trafficking of controlled substances, (III) organized crime, (IV) murder, (V) contract killings, (VI) human trafficking, (VII) kidnapping for ransom, (VIII) arms trafficking, (IX) money laundering and (X) illicit activity of mining resources, by reforming the Organic Integral Penal Code according to the annex to question 4?
    1. Do you agree that persons deprived of liberty should serve their entire sentence in a social rehabilitation center for the crimes detailed in the annex to question 5, reforming the Organic Integral Penal Code as stated in the aforementioned annex?
    1. Do you agree with the criminalization of possession or carrying of arms, ammunition or components that are for the exclusive use of the Armed Forces or the National Police, without affecting firearms permitted for civilian use, by reforming the Organic Integral Penal Code in accordance with the annex to question 6?
    1. Do you agree that arms, their parts or components, explosives, ammunition or accessories that were instruments or material object of a crime may be destined to the immediate use of the National Police or the Armed Forces, by reforming the Organic Integral Penal Code in accordance with the annex to question 7?
    1. Do you agree with the evaluation of the servants of the Judicial Function, including an audit of their patrimonial declarations, according to the annex to question 8?
    1. Do you agree with the State proceeding to be the holder (owner) of the assets of illicit or unjustified origin, simplifying the procedure of the Organic Law of Extinction of Dominion, according to the annex to question 9?
    1. Do you agree with the reform of the procedures of inadmission, deportation and expulsion of foreigners, in order to control migration and strengthen the security of the State, as per the annex to question 10?
    1. Do you agree with allowing the operation of casinos, gambling halls, betting houses or businesses dedicated to gambling, under the conditions detailed in the annex to question 11? (I)