Trump's victory, and the further mass oppression of minorities, is closer than ever before. May god have mercy on our souls.
previous preamble
The totalitarian capitalist dystopia which was created by the United States in the aftermath of the Korean War has increasingly experienced problems as the multipolar world is being gradually birthed.
Due to the widespread exploitation of the population, long work weeks, and high housing prices, the population growth of South Korea has plummeted, with the lowest fertility rate on the planet, and the highest suicide rate in the OECD. While a capitalist "success story" before the 2008 recession in terms of profit accumulation for the richest at the expense of most others, conditions have grown more dire in the Long Depression since the crash. GDP growth per year has averaged out at 2-3%. For more concrete figures, labour productivity has stagnated, particularly in the service sector. The rate of profit hit a peak when the dictatorship ended in the late 1980s, but has since massively tumbled. These dynamics are not unique to South Korea; they are happening throughout the West.
While South Korea is stagnating, perhaps even falling, its northern neighbour is rising. With Russia already persona non grata to much of the developed world and yet still maintaining fairly good economic growth and continuously albeit gradually moving towards victory in Ukraine, Putin sees no reason to be intimidated by the West's shunning of the DPRK, and Russia is establishing ties as well as military and economic deals. This seems to portend an end to the post-Soviet period of forced isolation due to UN actions forbidding the people of the DPRK to leave the country (which many westerners believe is a policy originating from the Korean leadership due to their propagandized education).
Many in the West are still, regrettably, unable to properly analyze the geopolitical situation of Korea due to their government programming, leading to bizarre takes about imminent collapse, or desperation on the part of Russia or the DPRK, unable to recognize that the DPRK has a powerful military sector all its own, and decades of autarky has created a durable society where limited resources must be used efficiently and effectively. The position of the Korean Peninsula seems likely to be a critical part of the US-China conflict, whether this is an outright war or instead a series of proxy wars. Indeed, Korea's position may soon become very important in global trade routes if the US tries to cut off the Strait of Malacca to Chinese-bound cargo ships, with vital resources like oil and food potentially transported both over land and via the Arctic Route over Russia and through the DPRK to China. Russia's leadership clearly sees the importance of Korea in the future, hence their actions now; and, of course, South Korea siding with Ukraine has also forced Putin's hand to oppose them more openly.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The "Country" of the Week is South Korea! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
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.
Olaf Schwanz rejects any sort of ceasefire/peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine.
The crackdown on pro-Palestine rallies in Germany still continues, with the provincial government of NRW even requesting groups such as BDS and JVJP be declared nationally as terrorist groups/Hamas intelligence. Activists have even had their homes raided, computers, smartphones and money confiscated.
The proposal to no longer capitalise "Russia" on official documents in Latvia got struck down, L
A children's hospital was hit in Kiev by a confirmed Kh-101 missile. Of course some questions and observations do arise. Does Ukraine also have Kh-101 missiles in their arsenal? If yes, is it possible that the AFU fired at the hospital as a false-flag to garner sympathy from NAFOs and the EU? The missile was not intercepted and reached its target. It also flew in from the west-northwestern direction, hitting behind the Ministry of Infrastructure's HQ, which is southeast-facing. Had it more plausibly been a Russian strike, it would have come from the north or northeast directions, unless of course Russia also launched attacks from Belarus. Or was Belarus indeed one origin point for the 8 July strikes against Kiev? If so, then there is a possibility that Russia launched this missile, either by accident, or to strike a military target allegedly operating in the children's hospital behind the Ministry of Infrastructure.The AFU (and Azov) have been known to operate in hospitals, schools or apartment towers since the conflict began, which is also a war crime. But that fact has been long dismissed as "whataboutism and Putinist/Kremlin/Russian" propaganda, with Putin and Russia being intentionally misspelled by NAFOs of course. As they scream and condemn the alleged Russian strike (even months-years later should it be found that Russia was not guilty), they will sing high praises and give unconditional support to:
The death toll in Gaza is now estimated to be as high as 186,000 according to Lancet, with the upper end estimate even exceeding half a million. National population registries have been destroyed months ago. There are no more mosques, schools or hospitals functioning and even most high-rise buildings are leveled. Humanitarian/civil/EMS services are in a terminal crisis, due to collapse at any moment. Proportionally to South Africa, this is equal to the cities of Cape Town, Mossel Bay and George all being totally destroyed, with Nelson Mandela Bay beginning to be under siege. The upper estimate makes it equivalent to the total destruction of the Gauteng Province (Pretoria and Johannesburg, 1/4ths of South Africa's population). Some yellow-ribbon boers have been actually calling for Gauteng's total destruction also. The homicide rate in Gaza would now amount to 9.9k-21.6k/100k
Hey, maybe that's the Apple Tax - all those free iPhone 15 Pro Max phones that is given to Diaper soldiers are affecting profits and losses need to be recouped somehow. Might as well come up with a justification to charge double that of what is basically a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, but with slightly weaker specs, 1 less camera and doesn't even include that pen.
There are at least some better news:
Roland Lamola is now the successor of Naledi Pandor ans South Africa's foreign minister. He is also a staunch supporter of Palestine and serves as one of the judges on the panel supporting South Africa at the ICJ. He has stated he will continue to support the case, as well as Naledi Pandor's positions.
The South African Friends of Israel's DDoS protection is... inadequate. We do a little trolling.
Netanyahu before you sleep, go to the toilet; Put a rubber sheet under the mattress and a pot next to the bed
Death to America
The next time there's a recession and these countries and people actually have to deal with real problems it's going to be so funny
Germans do be demanding the extermination of all Ukrainians.
Why would this be the case lol
Ukraine and Russia have had similiar arsenals since the 1990s, with the former now also supplemented by NATO scrap metal.
Kh-101 was developed after the USSR
Maybe Olaf will learn what happens to snow in summer