Image is of vehicles set aflame by protestors near a government building.


Since July 1st, students have protested the unpopular proposal in which 30% of government jobs would be reserved for veterans of the 1971 War of Independence and their relatives. In a country with a youth unemployment rate of around 20% and a population of 170 million, a large number of otherwise eligible and competent people would have been forced out due to favouritism for veterans. As with basically every country on the planet over the last couple years, Bangladesh is suffering from inflation and an increasing cost-of-living, further exacerbating tensions.

The student protests have been met with significant violence by the government - local newspapers report that over a hundred protestors have been killed, and thousands have been injured. Guns and tear gas have been used. Additionally, the government has completely cut internet access throughout Bangladesh to prevent organizing, which has had some success in dividing protestors, but has also only further angered various parts of the country due to the massive impact to Bangladesh's online industries and various startups. And a national curfew has been in place to limit movement, with the population told to remain home if they want to be safe.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh relented, stating that now, only 5% of government jobs would be reserved for veterans and their families. 2% would be allocated to members of minorities, with the remaining 93% distributed on merit. A period of tentative calm has arrived, but Hasnat Abdullah, a coordinator of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, has stated that unless the government restores the internet, removes the curfew, releases detainees, and forces certain ministers to resign within a few days, then the protests will resume.


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 Bangladesh! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

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]
    ·
    5 months ago

    LMAO. I made this comment in a blue-no-matter-who meme post in /r/DemocraticSocialism (which I once moderated, but it got taken over by liberals during the Reddit API blackout):

    JFC this is literally just another liberal sub now. Yikes.

    and a moderator removed it with the reply:

    No sectionalism.

    What a farce. The posers don't even know how to spell "sectarianism". Not to mention, of course, the giganto-brained idea that it actually applies between leftists and liberals.

    • TerminalEncounter [she/her]
      ·
      5 months ago

      Sectionalism is what George Washington warned about lol ew and he was saying it cause he didn't want this obviously doomed union to come to a head over the issue of slavery

    • mkultrawide [any]
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      The sub was taken over by some "progressive" 7 months ago. I assume they took it over because it was banned/suspended for lack of moderation, because they got it through mod request. I think the admins might have banned the original mods and let some liberals do a hostile takeover.

      • ziggurter [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        During the darkout "protest" over Reddit's API nonsense, a lot of subs that shut down/went private got taken over without the usual process of people having to be inactive/banned. Yeah, some liberal requested it. There was a brief period where I (or other mods, who were generally inactive by then) could've contested it, but 1. I was on a Reddit hiatus and wasn't sure whether I'd go back, and 2. the admins probably would've given it to them anyway, especially if I refused to take it back public at the time. So I didn't bother. And it wasn't until months later that I decided to go back and start kicking all the genocide apologists and blue-no-matter-who liberals out of /r/BreadTube and keep it leftist even if it meant its popularity would took a nosedive and even if it went kaput.

        • mkultrawide [any]
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          I'm thinking about making a drama post calling out the two new mods for hiding behind the automod to remove comments that disagree with them in the comments, and only removing comments for "sectionalism" when it's a socialist criticizing a liberal and not the other way around.

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

            It'll probably just get removed, but there's not much to lose (worst case they ban you from their shitty liberal sub). So not a terrible idea if you want to expend the effort.

      • SchillMenaker [he/him]
        ·
        5 months ago

        It's based on a children's movie. The post is a nuanced way of saying that you have to have a baby's brain to believe that dumb garbage.

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

        Galaxy-brained liberal nonsense. They are allegedly keeping from being genocided by Trump by vote blue. They consider "socialism" doing the vote for others as well as themselves, and I assume getting those others to vote blue too. They consider not voting exactly equivalent to voting for Trump. And they consider third-parties completely "Utopian" and worthless and a plunge into Trumpian genocide if you reach for them.