Image is of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Ansarallah.

The death of Zionism has just massively accelerated.

previous preamble

BRICS has expanded to include Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Argentina is currently experiencing technical difficulties due to the election of the ancap clown Milei - once he's out of office, maybe they can try again.

I don't really have much to say about this one way or another. BRICS has, so far, made only nervous and small steps towards challenging US hegemony. This isn't really that unexpected, as only China and Russia are the real "true believers" in ending US hegemony (and even then, China's government either believes, or is pretending to believe, that reconciliation is still possible). Brazil, India, and South Africa are less enthralled by the concept of dethroning the US, most especially India, who had to make a firm decision in 2023 whether they were going to be on the side of America, or on the side of the Global South, and chose the former, strengthening their military relationship. They're still best of friends with Russia, but they are very obviously the sussy imposter of the BRICS group.

The prospects of BRICS are only really loosely correlated with the prospects of multipolarism, though. It's not a process that hinges on BRICS's successes or failures. It is coming because the contender states (in Desai's terminology) are irreversibly rising, and the US is irreversibly falling. If it will not be BRICS that leads, it will be a different organization. A better world is not only possible, but inevitable - unfortunately for the US.

I'm taking a week off the updates because I've been swamped lately, and also feel the need to reconfigure (and find new) sources. Needless to say that I've grown tired of Financial Times headlines, even if they do represent the actual views of the bourgeoisie.

The Country of the Week is Ethiopia! 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.

  • ziggurter [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    8 months ago

    My own summary and interpretation of Israel's arguments to the ICJ:

    1. Israelis are the real victims of genocide in this conflict, as is literally the only possible relation between genocide and Israel/Jews. I mean, we own the term after all. Source: Holocaust (duh!).
    2. There is no "dispute" between Israel and South Africa that the court can rule over, because that would require that we engage with them. We decided to instead use the get-out-of-jail-free-card of just ignoring them and continuing our genocide. Us doing genocide obviously doesn't mean we oppose South Africa's view that we should stop doing genocide. Therefore you can't do anything. Nah, nah, sorry!
    3. Pffffft! "Random quotes" of people like the Israeli Prime Minister, Secretary of Defense, and Knesset members mean nothing. Our highest authorities could literally say explicitly, "We intend to commit genocide and we are currently doing so," and have every IDF troop repeat this after them, and it doesn't matter because it's not "policy". (Also, freeze-peach )
    4. But KHamas/Hamas!!!! (Surprisingly, one or two of them actually pronounces it correctly.) Literally in every home and hospital, in every humanitarian zone and aid vehicle, and embedded in every facility of civilian infrastructure!
    5. We provide all the food, water, medicine, fuel, etc. that Gazans could possibly want, so they must just be refusing to eat. We're good daddies, but what'cha gonna do if the kids just won't eat?!
    6. How dare you imply we can't do as much war as we like under whatever conditions we like! If we can't blow people up, we'll literally all die. We are the Allies in WW2, Hamas are the Axis, and South Africa is some neutral third-party trying to get us to surrender to the Nazis and let them do their thing!
    7. Our ethnic cleansing is actually an anti-genocide measure!

    TBH I can see the court doing the "procedural"/"technicality" thing and cowardly deciding that South Africa didn't jump through all the hoops necessary to bring the case (#2). Then they can just shrug and hold up their hands and go "doesn't really matter if they're really doing a genocide, sorry." It would be completely in line with how systemic racism generally pervades elite, liberal systems of injustice. Legalism is so fucking awesome!

    Some extra thoughts:

    • Israel literally claimed to find a pistol in an incubator.
    • I wonder if their plan is to capture Hamas fighters and tie them to the nose cones of their missiles. Then there'd literally be Hamas anywhere they choose to strike! It's like the offensive equivalent of "human shields".
    • God, several of these people still wear the silly wigs along with all the ridiculous robes. I vote we start taking these stodgy idiots seriously no sooner than when they start dressing like normal people.
    • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      That is a shambles of a defence really. Hopefully the ICJ rules on facts and not politics, like they have in the past, with declaring the Israeli “wall” in the West Bank illegal, and stating that Israel has no right of self-defence in the territory of which it is the occupying power.

    • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      God, several of these people still wear the silly wigs along with all the ridiculous robes. I vote we start taking these stodgy idiots seriously no sooner than when they start dressing like normal people.

      When addressed by one of these people, the correct reaction is to look directly at them, hold eye contact, and slowly remove the multicolored clown wig from your bag and place it on your own head before responding

      • someone [comrade/them, they/them]
        ·
        8 months ago

        I now have a burning desire to find and purchase a multicolored clown wig in the traditional style of a British barrister. Or make one.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Imagine dressing like middle class Brits from the 19th century in the belief that wearing a robe and an ugly rug on your head conveys legitimacy. The extent to which euros never really left the middle ages or achieved modernity is stunning sometimes.

      • ziggurter [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        8 months ago

        This was one of South Africa's lawyers (from the first set of arguments, not this second one). The long, straight, blond hair pouring out of the back of the old-white-brit wig is truly a bizarre aesthetic.

        Show

        She spoke well, but the look is definitely distracting.

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]
          ·
          8 months ago

          That's what really mystifies me. Why shitty ugly wigs that look like bad carpet? They could get decent wigs, and they don't, and I assume it's some inexplicable perversion that only exists in perfidious Albion.