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
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.
Iranian media constantly assuring that its ambassador in Lebanon is just slightly injured, now they say he had a "little" eye surgery and he is good and all.
Meanwhile a low ranking conservative official raised questions about Raisi's helicopter crash and whether Israel did the same thing to the electronics aboard the helicopter that it did to Pagers in Lebanon.
I purpose adding more Hijab Police to streets because thats apparently more important than the national security 😒.
Who are you...what a bizarre thing to say
An Iranian living in Iran.
As an aside, if you ever decide to write up a post about life in Iran, that is something I know myself and a lot of other western Hexbear users would love to read. The propaganda here is no intense, and there’s such a dearth of sources from Iran in English about that sort of thing, any real insight is appreciated.
Lots of great Iranian cinema out there if you want to dive in. A Separation, by Asghar Farhadi, and Close-Up, by Abbas Kiarostami, are masterpieces. And then you'll read a weird review from the U.S. saying something like "So weird that this Iranian film has people just living their lives and not conspiring against America for ninety minutes."
Absolutely love the work of Jafar Panahi. No Bears was phenomenal, and I love Panahi's stubborn refusal to stop making movies but also not live abroad; dude clearly loves Iran.
Added him to my list, thanks. By the way, I watched Long Day's Journey Into Night recently, which you've recommended before. That last hour was jawdroppingly stunning.
Panahi worked under Kiarostami so you know kind of what to expect. And glad you enjoyed it!! Becomes better every re-watch imo
I would if opportunity comes.
blud is unto NOTHING
Did pezeshkian not stop/ abolish this? I was under the impression that he was going to get rid of those laws
Hijab Police is under command of the leader, he can't do anything about it other than giving lip service.
so then what was the point of electing the lib? to bow down to the west and not even do any reforms? Seems like a monumentally stupid move., lose-lose.
There's a reason why the West wants the Global South to be staffed with liberals. Besides worshiping the West, liberals are also complete dumbasses.
yeah but it wasn't the west that installed this one, it was the Iranian people... in the middle of the Palestinian genocide and 2nd Nakba they vote for a candidate who is least likely to help them.
Real wtf moment from the outside
I deeply appreciate his continued support for the resistance, but yeah now I feel stupid for thinking the guy was going to stop hijab law.
spoiler
Liberal
He isn't a liberal, he is conservetive actually. Read my other comment.
One, conservatives are Liberals. Two, he’s a Liberal in the context of Iranian politics in that he wants to open up to the West and opposes the hardliners in government who have correct anti-imperialist principles
A westerner lecturing an Iranian. Peak Hexbear liberalism
So why did Iranians vote for him? Is he basically a liberal who is using hijab/women's rights to get votes but won't do anything in the end?
Man, I got excited he won. I hope he keeps up with supporting the resistance and continues pivoting Iran towards BRICS and China at least.
Your first question has a long answer which I can't put together right now due to literally having fever.
He did condemn Mahsa Amini's incident right when it happened when he was a MP, and he did so on National TV. Perhaps that was one of the reasons the Guardian Council accepted his candidacy. Total number of people who participated in Raisi's election was a all time low because the GC had disqualified anyone who would challenge Raisi. Some people called that election a "selection". Thus the ballots became bins and the wonderful management of Mahsa protests which involved a lot of pouring gas over the fire meant next election would have even less people participating which is a matter of legitimacy. So they had no choice but bring a guy who was critical of their actions.
No politician, including Pezeshkian, have suggested removing mandatory Hijab, instead they just criticize the Hijab Police's approachs.
Presidents in Iran don't get to choose their foreign policy without getting permission from the leader. Don't worry.
Thank you for your response, also I hope you feel better ❤️