Image is of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Ansarallah.

The death of Zionism has just massively accelerated.

previous preamble

BRICS has expanded to include Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Argentina is currently experiencing technical difficulties due to the election of the ancap clown Milei - once he's out of office, maybe they can try again.

I don't really have much to say about this one way or another. BRICS has, so far, made only nervous and small steps towards challenging US hegemony. This isn't really that unexpected, as only China and Russia are the real "true believers" in ending US hegemony (and even then, China's government either believes, or is pretending to believe, that reconciliation is still possible). Brazil, India, and South Africa are less enthralled by the concept of dethroning the US, most especially India, who had to make a firm decision in 2023 whether they were going to be on the side of America, or on the side of the Global South, and chose the former, strengthening their military relationship. They're still best of friends with Russia, but they are very obviously the sussy imposter of the BRICS group.

The prospects of BRICS are only really loosely correlated with the prospects of multipolarism, though. It's not a process that hinges on BRICS's successes or failures. It is coming because the contender states (in Desai's terminology) are irreversibly rising, and the US is irreversibly falling. If it will not be BRICS that leads, it will be a different organization. A better world is not only possible, but inevitable - unfortunately for the US.

I'm taking a week off the updates because I've been swamped lately, and also feel the need to reconfigure (and find new) sources. Needless to say that I've grown tired of Financial Times headlines, even if they do represent the actual views of the bourgeoisie.

The Country of the Week is Ethiopia! 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

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 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.

  • Teekeeus [comrade/them]
    ·
    10 months ago

    The Red Sea attacks are throwing supply chains into chaos — but US oil exports appear to be benefiting from them

    The ongoing attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi rebels are causing chaos for the world's supply chains — but American oil exports appear to be benefiting from them.

    That's because international demand has shifted to ample US shale oil supply — which is the "safer and cheaper way to procure supply, especially for EU customers," Robert Yawger, the executive director for energy futures at Mizuho Securities USA, wrote in a note on Thursday, per MarketWatch.

    Due to the attacks, many ships are rerouting from the Red Sea — which connects to the Suez Canal, a vital trade link between Asia and Europe — to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, but this makes journeys longer and more expensive.

    So, many buyers appear to be simply purchasing oil from the US instead of the Middle East. US petroleum exports rose by 35% on-week to nearly 5.3 million barrels a day for the week ended December 29, according to the US Energy Information Administration. This is the first time US exports have spiked since the Houthi started their Red Sea attacks in mid November.

    Yawger expects US petroleum exports to hold above the 5 million barrels a day level in the coming weeks amid intensifying geopolitical tensions.

    The US has spearheaded a multinational operation to protect shipping lanes around the Red Sea, but many shipping companies are still avoiding the region and are warning of major disruptions to their schedules.

    For oil consumers at least, there's a simple solution to the problem, wrote Yawger.

    "Forget about the Houthis/Iranian menace in the Red Sea," he wrote. "You don't need a US Navy escort from danger — just a nice, clean two- to- four-week round-trip journey to the US."

    Interesting, so now europe is even more dependent on the US than before

    • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      The USA thinks "Oh great we get to make more money" while Europe thinks "I bet the americans are doing this stuff on purpose to squeeze more money out of us" It is going to breed resentment in the EU and the americans are too stupid and blinded by profits to see it.

      • Kaplya
        ·
        10 months ago

        There is nothing they can do about it. We’re talking economic suicide here.

        This is why all the talks from the far right nationalists about how they want to leave the EU and shit are complete bullshit. They’re all going to end up facing the same catastrophic problems such as: no energy, no industries, no jobs. Good luck with trying to go against the US empire.

      • CarmineCatboy [he/him]
        ·
        10 months ago

        while Europe thinks "I bet the americans are doing this stuff on purpose to squeeze more money out of us"

        No until you get european media conglomerates without any input or shareholding from americans. At which point you can get headlines such as 'Americans make bank as their adventures force Europe to pay premium for their energy'. Until then the resentment over falling living standards will lack direction.

      • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
        ·
        10 months ago

        I'll go a bit against the majority here and say the EU could potentially fight back, but we are talking a level of consciousness akin to someone playing a strategy game with one guy only as the "player" making the correct choices.

        So what would be these choices? IMO European economy is still a significant factor for American companies profits. Random example Apple's revenue in the EU is about half the US but the same as China and Japan combined!. All the tech giants have a significant share of their profit coming from EU consumers and this can't be replaced, obviously you can't make poor starving children in Africa buy iPhones and the Chinese? Well the Americans are busy burning that bridge.

        If the EU realized that the still relatively rich and easily available consumer base is vital to US capitalism they could fight for their own interests. We can consider EU industry as irrelevant my overall point here is the US can't allow the EU economy to go entirely to shit, maybe the EU periphery is expandable, who cares about Italy or Spain they were saying since 2008 already.

        But if France/UK/Germany all go to shit together than it will significantly impact American business profits and this is the leverage they could use. At the same time the EU political class just can't look past their submissive status so they'll never take an antagonistic view towards the US.

        So finaly in comes the EU far-right nationalists and why liberals are so afraid, if there is any chance of the EU going towards the right while the US is still strying to portray this whole "centrist" democratic values BS shit then the world could be in for a surprise and some people are already afraid of that possibility.

        • Kaplya
          ·
          10 months ago

          It is far far more profitable to carve up European businesses than to keep them as long term customers.

          The irony is that’s how the EU got so rich in the first place - by carving up and financializing the post-Soviet industries and businesses in the 1990s. Why didn’t the EU keep the post-Soviet citizens as potential consumer base? Why not just sell stuff to the people of the post-Soviet states, who were by no means poor at the time? No, shock therapy is far more profitable than selling them stuff.

          Finance capitalists don’t think long term, but in this case, it is profitable for them even if you consider medium-long term!

      • Teekeeus [comrade/them]
        ·
        10 months ago

        It is going to breed resentment in the EU

        And what are they gonna do about it? They're reliant on america for energy since nord stream went down. Americans have military bases stationed throughout europe. Europeans have depleted their own arms by supplying ukraine. They're completely trapped

        • HexBroke
          ·
          4 months ago

          deleted by creator

        • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
          ·
          10 months ago

          They're completely trapped

          Nothing bad ever came from someone angry and backed into a corner. Even if Europe doesn't lash out militarily stress and resentment between america and its vassals are a good thing. There are all kinds of ways discontent can manifest and all of them weaken western hegemony.