Image is of Brazilian chuds storming the National Congress building in opposition to Lula winning the election, on January 8th, 2023, in their remarkably even shittier version of the January 6th events in America.

Bolsonaro, who is in the tragic category of pro-US South American leaders who are so awful and uncharismatic that even they can't get the US to help them overthrow a democratically elected left-ish government, has recently been facing that most elusive of things in this current world order: consequences for his actions. Bolsonaro and his friends have been under investigation by the police, and his passport has now been seized, meaning he is unable to leave the country. Alongside the man himself, the leader of the Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, has been caught up in searches and investigations. Brazilian Army Colonel Bernardo Correa Neto, a former aide to Bolsonaro, was very recently arrested upon his return to Brazil from the US, as well as another colonel.

From the Hexbear South American correspondent (a position I just made up), @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net:

Lol, they are really fucked. Iirc, this is a municipal election year in Brazil, Bolsonaro can't campaign publicly, he can't promote his candidates. The leader of his party is currently in prison. And even if he is released from prison, they are forbidden to communicate with each other. The high-ranking members of the Liberal Party are pretty much fucked because they can't communicate with each other and getting support from Bolsonaro could be very bad, as left-wing candidates will exploit the fact that Bolsonaro will probably be imprisoned for planning a coup.

The FBI seems to have concluded its investigation into Bolsonaro's money laundering scheme in the US and handed over its findings to the Brazilian Federal Police, I don't think Bolsonaro can even go to the US anymore, or any other country. And it could get even funnier, there is a very small chance of the Liberal Party being banned and all its seats in congress and the senate being transferred to other politicians, many of whom, even if they are conservative, will be much more favorable to Lula's social and economic reforms, as it has been proven that Bolsonaro used the party to finance the coup.

The Country of the Week is Brazil! 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.

  • Teekeeus [comrade/them]
    ·
    7 months ago

    German bank braces for wave of bad loans in ‘greatest real estate crisis since the financial crisis’

    Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, or PBB, a German lender focused on real estate, has set aside more money for bad debts as it braces for what it says is the worst decline in commercial property values in 15 years.

    PBB increased its provisions for losses on loans in the fourth quarter of 2023, taking the total set aside for the year to as much as €215 million ($231.7 million), it said in a statement Wednesday, citing “persistent weakness of the real estate markets.”

    “Despite these expenses, PBB remains profitable thanks to its financial strength — even in the greatest real estate crisis since the financial crisis,” it added.

    The global financial crisis peaked in 2008 as banks collapsed under the weight of huge losses on mortgages and related securities following the bursting of a bubble in the US housing market.

    On Thursday, PBB announced that it had enough cash and highly liquid assets on its balance sheet — a “liquidity cushion” — to operate for six months without new funding from investors. It said it would publish further details with its 2023 earnings in March.

    Fears about the health of bank balance sheets have resurfaced in recent weeks, almost a year on from a crisis that saw three US regional lenders collapse and the emergency rescue of Credit Suisse.

    US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers Tuesday that she had concerns about the exposure of some banks to commercial real estate.

    “I believe it’s manageable, although there may be some institutions that are quite stressed by this problem,” she said.

    Shares of PBB, the second German bank to warn of mounting losses on commercial real estate in two weeks, have slumped 17% since Friday. The stock has tumbled more than 25% so far this year and 40% in the past six months.

    Germany’s biggest lender Deutsche Bank said last week that it had allocated €123 million ($133 million) during the fourth quarter of last year to absorb potential defaults on its US commercial real estate loans. That’s more than quadruple the amount it set aside during the same three-month period in 2022.

    Banks as far apart as New York, Tokyo and Zurich have also reported mounting losses on lending to the troubled commercial property sector in recent days.

    On Wednesday, New York Community Bancorp attempted to reassure investors that it has enough cash to stay afloat after the stock shed about 60% of its value over the past eight days and ratings agency Moody’s downgraded the bank’s credit grade to junk.

    Last week, the troubled US regional lender reported a surprise $252 million loss for the fourth quarter, a big chunk of which was tied to loans for office buildings. It also set aside $552 million in the quarter to absorb potential losses on loans, up sharply from $62 million in the previous quarter.

    Also last week, Japan’s Aozora Bank said bad loans tied to US offices were partly to blame for its projected annual loss of 28 billion yen ($190 million) last year. And Swiss private bank and wealth manager Julius Baer said profit slumped 55% in 2023 because it lost 586 million Swiss francs ($680 million) on loans made to a single “European conglomerate,” reportedly the failed Austrian developer Signa Group.

    👀 commercial real estate fuckery

    • CoralMarks [he/him]
      ·
      7 months ago

      If our governments were operating rationally they would take over commercial real estate that can be converted into public housing, to also alleviate pressure in the housing market, but I guess who doesn't like bubbles?

      • Trudge [Comrade]@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        7 months ago

        That might lower commercial real estate prices, which means lower GDP, which in turn means lower GDP per capita aka everyone's poorer. Same thing for food and clothing.

        You wouldn't want to just have housing, food and clothes without any money would you???

        • Gucci_Minh [he/him]
          ·
          7 months ago

          What sucks is that a lot of people's only money is in their houses, so they also have an interest in seeing prices go up or stay high, because they would literally be broke without their lines of credit and whatever.

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

            Welcome to the biggest sector of the Canadian economy! Over 20% of our GDP consists of us buying and selling real estate to each other. Not developing real estate, of course. This 20+% doesn't include developing land, building buildings, installing utilities to service those buildings, all that physical stuff that's important. This 20+% is just the financial shenanigans that happen after a building becomes a building. Fakest economy in the world.

    • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]
      ·
      7 months ago

      i laughed at 'we remain strong even in the greatest financial crisis since the last great financial crisis'