Image is of a colectivo: an armed group, usually operating in impoverished areas, which act to support and defend the socialist government of Venezuela. They are often derided as vigilante terrorist groups which prop up the government, because cops are only bad when they are socialist and not murdering minorities, I suppose.
Maduro's party, the PSUV, has won the election after a staggering amount of propaganda by the opposition, who said their polls suggested they were going to win and that Maduro's loss was inevitable. The reaction across Latin America is what one would expect. Left-leaning leaders are generally respecting the results and congratulating Maduro, while those on the right and/or are US puppets (such as in semirecently-couped Peru) are calling for recounts, or even that the election was illegitimate. The US itself is also unhappy about the results. We shall soon see if their unhappiness boils over into yet another coup attempt.
Personally, I think they should have ran Guaido again.
Thank you to @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net for the election coverage here, and everything else they do in the news megathread.
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 Venezuela! 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
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.
would the best plan for Iran and Hezbollah be not retaliating? Although Israel definitely deserves to be wiped off the face of existence im worried about its genocidal sugar daddy Uncle Sam deciding we should nuke them.
A drone attack on Uncle Sam's soil targeting an Israeli military or intelligence figure.
I am just DYING to say to libs "they have a right to defend themselves, there were Americans killed but isn't collateral damage acceptable when taking out terrorists?"
Whatever Iran and Hezbollah's response will be, I think they'll be slow and methodical about it and won't react in anger. I don't think Hezbollah nor Iran really fears the United States militarily (they can't even defeat the military of one of the poorest nations on the planet despite their navy fighting their fiercest battle since WW2), but they know that if they start a war with Israel, tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of civilians will be condemned to death even if it stays non-nuclear, and you can't just disregard that because of revenge.
I don't really wanna do the whole "these guys are about to find out why we don't have healthcare!" thing but against the West; promising fire and retribution when the organizations you're supporting haven't yet promised or demonstrated that is a recipe for both embarrassment and disillusionment, and a mature geopolitical analyst will realize that there's plenty one can do in response to events that doesn't involve immediate violence. We all laugh at the rather immature and unknowledgable Westerners who posted about how Yemen is doomed after they started their blockade, then that US response dramatically failed, and those people are now coping by being like "U-uh, actually, you're owned! B-because Yemen hasn't sunk every ship in the US Navy, which is definitely something you predicted and I'm not making up to feel better!" There will almost certainly be an eventual military response, but it may take a little while to plan properly and it may strike targets that are different from the ones we want them to strike (e.g. Tel Aviv).
It's like Russia fighting Ukraine; when Ukraine does something extraordinarily stupid, like trying to hit the Kremlin with drones or killing a bunch of Russian civilians or sending forces into Belgorod, Russia has never decided to start striking Ukrainian cities and civilians with wild abandon out of revenge or anger, because that's unproductive for the war aims. It might "feel good" in some sense, but it doesn't actually solve any military problems (this is why the Israeli genocide in Gaza is so idiotic even if you're completely heartless and don't think Arabs are human; it only causes more people to sign up to Hamas and thus makes the war harder for you). The response is usually "We know what you're trying to do, you're trying to escalate things to hope we slip up in our anger and/or get NATO involved. We shall keep up the attrition war regardless and carry out our plans as we've scheduled them." Because that is the thing Ukraine, and also Israel, fears most: the conflict continuing apace until there are no more soldiers and tanks left to send to their destruction in the Donbass/Gaza/northern Israel. Hezbollah has Israel in a headlock, and Israel is trying to elbow Hezbollah in the kidneys to try and escape that headlock, and Hezbollah is not letting its grip weaken.
No the best response it to keep ramping up pressure until Israel is destroyed, there is no other option. Delaying the inevitable just causes more death.
I don't think they can allow an infinite runway of escalation. I think they will be careful once again to make a measured response. But I'm no expert.