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On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.

The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I've had to restart my program after somebody told me "Disregard all previous prompts."

While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the... reforms... that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it's as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.

Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven't meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.

The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Pridnestrovie, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.

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.

  • Torenico [he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Government announces it will ‘dissolve’ Argentina’s tax agency

    The AFIP will be replaced with a new, reduced agency and over 3,000 jobs are on the chopping block

    President Javier Milei’s government announced on Monday that Argentina’s federal tax agency, AFIP by its Spanish initials, will be dissolved and replaced with a new agency in accordance with its mandate to “reduce inefficient structures.” According to Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni, 34% of public service jobs within the AFIP will be eliminated. As of Monday evening, no details had been released regarding the new agency’s operations or what the move means in concrete terms for the country’s fiscal infrastructure.

    “AFIP will cease to exist. In its place, the Collection and Customs Control Agency will be created with a simplified structure,” said Adorni in his routine press conference at the Casa Rosada. According to the Herald’s sister publication Ambito, he did not accept questions after the announcement.

    The new and reduced agency, ARCA by its Spanish initials, will be a merger between two preexisting government bodies (the tax and customs general directorates, DGI and DGA by their Spanish acronyms). It will be led by Florencia Misrahi, a lawyer who formerly worked for Cargill and is currently serving as the head of the AFIP. “The Argentina of fiscal voracity is over. What belongs to every Argentine is theirs and no one else’s. No state bureaucrat should have the power to tell them what to do with their property,” Adorni added.

    A communiqué released on Monday afternoon described the AFIP as inefficient and highlighted the termination of 3,155 workers hired under former President Alberto Fernández. The communiqué refers to the administration as “Kirchnerite” in reference to Fernández’s vice president, Cristina Kirchner, who is often targeted by government discourse.

    Adorni claimed that firing the workers would lead to savings of around AR$6.4 million per year. Both the spokesman and the communiqué referred to their employment as “irregular,” questioning the legality of their hiring. “The creation of ARCA is aimed at reducing the size of the state, eliminating unnecessary positions, professionalizing the agency, destroying circuits of corruption, and improving the efficiency of customs collection and control,” read the communiqué.

    According to the Herald’s sister publication Ambito, the AFIP Board of Directors said it did not have “objections with respect to the reduction of political positions,” which the government referred to as “high positions,” because that is a power reserved for the Executive Branch. However, it emphasized that “dismissals will not be tolerated on the basis of political origin.”

    lmfao

    also ancaptain announced, out of nowhere, that the media attacked him and said he does not have sex with his sister or his dogs. Nobody ever claimed he has sex with dogs, but this is the current state of things.

      • SoyViking [he/him]
        ·
        2 months ago

        My "I do not fuck my sister or my dogs" t-shirt is raising a lot of questions already answered by my t-shirt

    • FuckyWucky [none/use name]
      ·
      2 months ago

      thats amazing. Tax collection is one of the things neoliberals know not to cut, its a basic function along with police, military and judiciary. His ancap is showing.

      • thelastaxolotl [he/him]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Tax collection is one of the things neoliberals know not to cut

        sadly this is one of the things neolibs in Mexico did not know

        • SoyViking [he/him]
          ·
          2 months ago

          They didn't know it in Denmark either. They fired a bunch of tax people in the early noughties, officially in anticipation of a new fancy IT system that would make everything more efficient, less officially as a way of making tax fraud easier since lowering taxes on the rich would have been too unpopular.

          The IT system was a huge failure and never worked, the promised efficiency was never realised and it took 20 years to repair the damage.

      • anarcho_blinkenist [none/use name]
        ·
        2 months ago

        guy has no political acumen to make the austerity, theft, and plundering less shameless. guy thinks US is gonna protect him from the pitchfork mob while he's doing everything to ensure the cops and military open the gates to his compound for them; but he's gonna be too much of an awkward political liability for that, Trump or whoever's just gonna let the phone ring as he gets ripped to shreds by the masses.

    • mkultrawide [any]
      ·
      2 months ago

      "How are we going to reduce inflation and deficit? Why, by eliminating one of the most powerful levers a state has to fighting them, of course."

    • Tomorrow_Farewell [any, they/them]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Defund and overwork low-level government workers -> they stop working as effectively as they could have -> blame them and defund and overwork them further -> ...

    • sexywheat [none/use name]
      ·
      2 months ago

      he does not have sex with his sister or his dogs

      I'm sorry do you have a link for this holy shit? I did a quick search but I presume the video/articles are all in spanish.