Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.
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.
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The bulletins site is here!
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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.
Wapo on challenges of conscription in Taiwan https://archive.is/rmXVC
This is the military they're desperate to fight China with?
To the last
ukrainiantaiwanianI feel like they think "enemy at the gates" is a good war plan
I'm Taiwanese American and live in Taiwan. No one here is desperate to fight China. Don't listen to Chinese nationalists when it comes to Taiwan stuff. They're literally just as wrong as CIA -controlled media.
Oh no, sorry by "they" I meant American media scaremongering. I figured the vast majority of people in Taiwan would have no interest, I mean look at the recruitment lol.
What do Chinese nationalists say about Taiwan?
Lmao they give up the game openly in front of their colony and the colony still falls for it.
I remember reading most Taiwanese people just want their status to stay the way it is. Not officially recognized by anyone as its own country but also not being governed by the mainland. But someone must’ve forgotten that the folks in Virginia will be telling them how to run their country.
They sure as fuck don't want a war over this shit. How foolish one would be to live on an island and entertain going to war over pretty much anything ...
The US isn't running Taiwan at all, and we don't really have much of a choice do we? China claims it wants to take over for no reason. There's not exactly any reasoning we can do with them and obviously for the US we have to pay them protection money by buying useless old weapons and whatever weird demands they have (unprofitable tsmc plant in Arizona as an example). Neither US nor China is good for Taiwan, it's just that being taken over by a foreign country is 100% a nonstarter.
Lol. Lmao even
"why do you want to take over"
"idk, no reason"
Tell me you are a KMT apologist without telling me you're a KMT apologist. Hell even the KMT wisened up and realized that it was either reunification or a fatal war. Only the CIA backed DPP is pushing the war drums.
The distinctions between Taiwanese and Mainlanders is entirely man made by the US Cold War machine. Taiwan is part of China and the people who live in Taiwan apart from the indigenous tribes are Chinese and have always been Chinese. One of the first steps in colonizing a nation is to fool the colonized into thinking they are different from their brothers and Taiwan is a US vassal colony.
Taiwan's economy is linked with the mainland, losing that would be devastating to the island's inhabitants. What psuedo concern do you have with Chinese rule? That they are going to ban your sacred gay marriages? Or that they'll take away your twitter and reddit? You lack a material awareness of the stakes of this conflict and have unlearned diplomacy because you identify with the kill or be killed mentality of the same settlers who colonized you.
At least you can negotiate with the CPC, no Yankee general will ever offer you the same courtesy.
No, everyone in Taiwan knows what's up. It's just that you have a party that dgaf and a bunch of boba liberal activists who will be on the first plane to the US/Japan when shit goes down.
Sometimes I wonder if the anti-china atrocity propaganda is for Usians or is it actually for diaspora Chinese and Taiwan to make them ashamed of their roots and assimilate into the West.
I'm sure everyone knows it's a political struggle for the US to project power in the Asia Pacific but the both sides bad rhetoric seems really prevalent in Taipei circles.
I can't wait for seperatists to jump ship to the US and Trump calls them losers and deports them.
No such thing as separatists. It logically doesn't make sense. Blah blah blah KMT doesn't represent Taiwan. China historically didn't give a fuck about Taiwan. Mao supported taiwanese independence from it's Japanese colonizers so on and so forth.
wait really, you have a link you could share for Mao supporting Taiwanese independence?
It’s a perfect opportunity for any yanks to set up a “private security training company” in Taiwan. Just say you’re NRA certified and an ex NAVY seal. They can’t verify shit. Start doing courses and teaching people the same skills as that CQB disarming meme trainer on youtube.
There's a tiny market for it. I think someone is doing it already. Sino made fun of them already.
Tacticool culture is not really a thing in Taiwan. Some people do play airsoft and paintball so the target market is probably them.