Image is of China's ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Sheng, meeting Taliban Prime Minister Hasan Akhund in September 2023.

I know the Rambo title card is a hoax.

The COTW was chosen in the wake of the aborted sequel to the attempted assassination of Trump being performed by a guy who is VERY enthusiastic about Ukraine, to the point of trying to sneak Afghan soldiers into Ukraine by setting up a house in Pakistan to house them and then further transport them. He also apparently offered to send thousands of Afghan soldiers to Haiti to help them combat gang violence. Whomst among us doesn't have the numbers of thousands of Afghan soldiers on speed-dial. Do you reckon there's a group chat?

Anyway, while there is still no official recognition of the Taliban's government by any country, China has taken a different course than the late USSR and the US - forming economic in-roads, rather than trying their own invasion. This has been a big boon for the struggling country, with various mines and oil and agriculture deals helping keep things barely afloat. A total disintegration of the social fabric of Afghanistan is not in the interest of any of the powers that border it - China, Pakistan, and Iran, with Russia not too far away - so an interesting dynamic of helping-without-official-recognition has been established. I wonder who will be the first country to fully recognize them?

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 Afghanistan! 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 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.
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.

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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]
    ·
    13 hours ago

    “The Letter was Signed by Edmundo With his Own Pen”: Jorge Rodriguez to teleSUR - Telesur

    The official noted that the Venezuelan government has documented that it was a negotiation between executive vice president Delcy Rodríguez and the Spanish government.

    Article

    In an interview with the multiplatform teleSUR, the president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez, gave details about the letter of recognition of former presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia towards the Venezuelan institutions and the presidential results of last July 28, and stated that the document González signed with his own pen.

    On signing the letter, Rodriguez noted that (those involved in the process) “we had committed to keep in reserve the letter of Edmundo González Urrutia -former opposition candidate for the presidency of Venezuela-“.

    The text marks a milestone from the headline, says Rodríguez, because “it is not recognizing either the Assembly of Guaidó or Dinora Figuera… , but recognizes the National Assembly that voted the people of Venezuela last December of 2020”.

    This consensus is based, according to Rodríguez, on “a request he had made (Urrutia) and the Venezuelan government had no “problem” in maintaining “in reverse (the) document”, however, both González Urrutia and his lawyer violated that agreement.

    The president of the National Assembly says that “from within the Venezuelan extreme right, the publication of a kind of transcription of the original letter appears”.

    On the other hand, Rodríguez explains that only one demand was made in the delivery of the letter, consisting of González Urrutia leaving his signature on each sheet, so that it would not be pointed out later that the Venezuelan institutions had altered the content. The senior Venezuelan official also noted that the former candidate himself decided to hand it over to him.

    “Some people close to him (Edmundo González Urrutia) contacted me and raised the possibility of having some exchanges with Mr González Urrutia for his intention to apply for political asylum in the Kingdom of Spain”, Rodriguez underlines referring to the processing of the departure of Edmundo González into Spanish soil.

    The official states that, in principle, communication was established by means of a telephone call and then also contacted Urrutia directly via a telephone call, The President of the Assembly was asked to meet him on 6 September.

    In addition, the official remarked on this line, referring to the political asylum process that the Venezuelan government has fully documented, which was a two-party negotiation: between executive vice president Delcy Rodríguez and the Spanish government.

    The meeting led to Venezuela offering the necessary safe-conduct for the departure of Urrutia, as well as the approval for an aircraft of the Spanish air force to make the trip.