Due to American cluster bombing campaigns advised by Kissinger during the Vietnam War to damage supply lines, over 2 million tonnes of ordinance were dropped on Laos over about a decade, averaging a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes. Laos is thus the most bombed country on the planet up to this point. 80 million bombs failed to explode - the cleanup operation is expected to take centuries, and 25,000 people have been killed and injured by bombs in the last 50 years. About 50 people are killed or injured every year to this day.
After the United States withdrew from Laos, the Pathet Lao took power and abolished the monarchy. Kaysone Phomvihane became a dominant figure in Laotian politics, keeping the course on Marxism-Leninism and implementing the first Five Year Plan in 1981. The second Five Year Plan in 1986 was modelled on Lenin's NEP, and this doubled rice production and significantly increased sugar production. After the fall of the USSR, Laos allowed a small capitalist class to exist, with similar control over them as in China. Laos maintains a 48-hour work week with paid sick leave, vacation time, and maternity leave, and workers are well-represented in trade unions. They faired relatively well during coronavirus from a social standpoint due to quick and efficient action to lock down the country, experiencing ~750 deaths out of a population of over 7 million.
There is hope even after utter destruction by genocidal oppressors.
The weekly update is here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Wednesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Friday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Laos! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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.
from natopedia:
i'll admit i know fuck all about guyana. interesting time to press the claim
I mean strike while the iron is hot and the empire is overextending itself.
This is fine for Venezuelan interests but I struggle to believe that they are grasping at this opportunity in order to help the indigenous people who live in the area.
The reason the issue is being forced now is that Guyana has begun treating the coast as an exclusive economic zone and under the extremely sane system of squatters rights that international law effectively is, that means Venezuela needs to act now or effectively give up on its claim.
No doubt the oil bounty plays into considerations but the major part of guyanas oil is outside the disputed region, and this isn’t exactly a new issue Venezuela has sought multiple times over century to get some kind of agreement made before anyone knew about the oil so it’s not simply about the oil.
Oil is part of it but so is nationalism, indigenous rights, and imperialism.
The fact that changed things here wasn’t so much the oil as Guyana asserting a claim of an EEZ and treating the area as an EEZ despite the claim not being accepted due to the existence of the border dispute. And treating the area as an EEZ by signing contracts with Exxon amounts to a repudiation of the Geneva agreement. That leaves Venezuela in the position of either doing something about it now or accepting the status quo as a permanent reality.
It’s kind of like if you have a property boundary dispute with a neighbor and they start building a fence. You are now forced to settle the boundary dispute. No doubt the existence of a pool in the disputed property influences things but even if the pool wasn’t there you’d still want that fence to be constructed along the correct property line.
Thanks comrade, this is a helpful explanation.
I feel like the Ukraine war is on the way out so it may not be a good time after all
Ukraine dying down is because USA and co are tapped out. They wont be able to rearm fast enough if other nations keep pushing.
With America distracted with their ongoing genocide in Gaza and throwing money after the failing, low-energy Ukraine regime, it seems like a great time to me. I wonder how many other countries are going to realize that America is the weakest it's been in decades and decide now is the time to pursue their own agendas. I like to daydream that it'll be a domino effect, with the US getting tied down in crisis after crisis and growing increasingly unable to respond effectively
absolutely, this is their best chance to enforce the claim that they've had probably since guyanan independence. it makes perfect sense but i can't help but worry about america lashing out and what that will actually look like.
russia, palestine/syria/yemen, the sahel alliance, now this. and i saw some talk of israel shipping through dubai which means iran might start thinking real hard about closing hormuz to israeli-aligned shipping. what's next?