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.
I dunno what gave you the idea that the UK was less racist than the USA or France. Race relations are... different here in the UK than in the states. British identity is coded exclusively white. There is an assumption that "British values" are a thing that exists, and that, for example, Islam is incompatible with them. In general, the conception of what makes someone British is very narrow, whereas US identity is necessarily broader. On the other hand, our cops don't generally make exterminating non-white people their primary goal.
I distinctly remember a Labour MP - I think it might have been Yvette Cooper actually - going on BBC Newsnight... This was maybe ten years ago... And saying, point-blank, that multiculturalism had failed. This was in the context of David Cameron banging on about instilling British values in prospective immigrants and the need for "integration" (conformity) and the like. It was the moment Labour lost me and become a for-the-whites party. This was before Corbyn even. Labour saw their record on immigration as something to apologise for.
For the past five years, to distract from the terrible failures of neoliberalism and austerity, both main parties and our entire media establishment have laser-focused on the few thousand "small boat" refugees that arrive on our shores from countries we've bombed and sanctioned. It was, for some reason, the dominant issue of the election, and prior to this, the key benchmark on which the Conservative party was being judged was in their ability to enact a performatively cruel plan to deport refugees to Rwanda while their claim is being processed (keep in mind, for example, that some of these refugees will be turning up because they're gay, and Rwanda does not enshrine their protection against discrimination and public attitudes towards homosexuality are negative). Both parties pledged to "stop the small boats". Keep in mind, the spectacle of small boats only exists because the UK refuses to allow people to claim for asylum from afar. Anyway, on the first day of these riots, what were people chanting? "Stop the small boats". The media's response is to suggest that it's all Russia's fault.
But yes, also as Awoo says, there is a violent subculture that exists within British society that is always itching for a fight regardless, and that might be a key difference as well.
I always find anti-immigrant people in Britain hilariously hypocritical. Like, dude. Your entire ruling class was French people who spoke French for like 500 years. The royals literally had to change their last name from a German one to an English sounding one during World War One to feel more British. And if you're so anti-immigration, why don't you get the English out of Northern Ireland? Did you forget about the immigrants you sent over to Australia and the 13 colonies? How do you think the Maori or black South Africans feel about your immigrants? Immigrants are not the ones closing down British factories or imposing austerity. Sometimes I think actively denying how reality works is the fundamental building block of right-wing ideology.
A lot of these disgusting gammon emigrate to other countries when they age. They then exist in Little England enclaves where they can eat the horrible British cardboard food and speak English in dimly lit "gastro pubs" for the rest of their lives. This, after lecturing other cultures to adopt "British values" the entire time. Some of them actually have the fucking gall to lecture minorities in the UK from afar.
Obligatory read settlers
I didn't vote for Ed Miliband in 2015 because of this and people got Big Mad at me