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.

  • voight [he/him, any]
    ·
    11 months ago

    The Yemeni Houthis are using Stinger MANPADS against American aircraft from nowhere. — TopWar Military Review

    Tonight, the armed forces of the United States, Great Britain and several other countries began a military operation against the Ansar Allah movement operating in Yemen, better known as the Houthis. Weapons are being used against military targets in Yemen. aviation air forces of the USA and Great Britain. The Yemeni Houthi command has already reported at least two enemy military aircraft shot down. Thus, it is reported that the US Armed Forces F-22 fighter was destroyed and that one of the British fighters involved in striking Yemen was shot down. The Houthis have their own air defense system, which is armed with both Soviet-made air defense systems left over from the Yemeni army and anti-aircraft missile systems transferred from Iran. However, another interesting nuance of the new conflict is already known - the Houthis are actively using Stinger MANPADS from nowhere against American aircraft. Naturally, the United States or other Western countries could not supply Stingers to the Houthis. Iran certainly cannot have such MANPADS in large quantities. Accordingly, speculation arises that the Houthis could have purchased MANPADS on the global arms market on their own, and the sellers could have been either directly from the Ukrainian military, or from countries or structures that purchased Stinger MANPADS from the Ukrainian military and decided to resell them. So the Pentagon should monitor more closely the fate of the weapons supplied to Ukraine, lest they then start shooting at American soldiers.

    Show

    • Wheaties [she/her]
      ·
      11 months ago

      Accordingly, speculation arises that the Houthis could have purchased MANPADS on the global arms market on their own, and the sellers could have been either directly from the Ukrainian military, or from countries or structures that purchased Stinger MANPADS from the Ukrainian military and decided to resell them

      Uncle Sam when there are unintended, yet easily foreseeable, consequences: :shocked-pikachu:

      • Hexa_2
        ·
        11 months ago

        deleted by creator

    • ImOnADiet
      ·
      11 months ago

      I didnt realize MANPADS could shoot down jets, thought they flew too high/fast

      • Torenico [he/him]
        ·
        11 months ago

        They can, MANPADS are able to engage, hit and shoot down jets. But it can be very tricky. Syrian jets suffered losses to MANPADS crews earlier during the Civil War especially as they conducted air attacks flying low and using unguided bombs and rockets and even cannon fire. Later on they began using more and more "chaff" to avoid getting hit by MANPADS during their attack runs, which improved their survivability, but these systems were always a threat.

        I think the raids conducted on Yemen were done by high-altitude aircraft using guided munitions, alongside cruise missiles. More information is needed.

        • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
          ·
          11 months ago

          Britain seems to have used 4 Eurofighter Typhoon fighters and an Airbus A330 Multirole Tanker for the attack, there is footage of their take-off from an RAF base in Cypress. The Eurofighter Typhoons would be the likely culprit if we are to believe British planes were shot down as the big Airbus tanker types fly at way higher altitude and are a way bigger deal if one was shot down somehow.

          Still going to wait for official confirmation, either visual or corroborated by Ansarallah officials. It's possible a handful of the 100+ cruise missiles launched at Yemen were intercepted by anti-air systems and the wreckage has yet to be fully identified. Fog of war is thick right now.

      • mkultrawide [any]
        ·
        11 months ago

        Yeah I would definitely be skeptical about this one. Unless we were using A-10 at ground attack speed to do our air strikes, a Stinger isn't fast enough or have enough range to hit a F-22 dropping guided bombs. The jet would be out of range so quickly.

      • Staines [they/them]
        ·
        11 months ago

        If the jets are worried about long range systems, they have to follow certain paths behind hills, through valleys, things that shield them from the big threats. The big missiles limit the direction and height jets can approach from. All you have to do then, is put some of your short range systems in the valleys and ridges you expect them to follow.

        • voight [he/him, any]
          ·
          11 months ago

          Thanks for pointing this out, 2 nights ago I was feverishly figuring out what goes on in Yemen w my buddy and we noticed how mountainous it is 👀👀👀

      • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
        ·
        11 months ago

        We would be if money wasn't essentially irrelevant and fake to the government at this point.

    • Parzivus [any]
      ·
      11 months ago

      God I hope this is real. Yemenis shooting down the ultimate US wunderwaffen would be amazing

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        11 months ago

        Please, i just need to see one engine cowling, one radar cone, one piece of incontrovertibale evidence.

        • VILenin [he/him]
          ·
          11 months ago

          We’ll know in the coming days if broiled war criminal pics start flooding the telegrams

      • voight [he/him, any]
        ·
        11 months ago

        We will see, for now I'm reporting that Ansar Allah associated Telegram accounts said this. In my heart I believe it completely because people are talking about this being impossible the way they lauded Merkava special defenses.

        Show

    • CascadeOfLight [he/him]
      ·
      11 months ago

      God please inshallah let an F-22 have been shot down, holy shit, do you know what that would mean?

      It would be the first F-22 ever downed by enemy fire, meaning that the airframe's ONLY air-to-air kill before its first downing - was a balloon

      • voight [he/him, any]
        ·
        11 months ago

        The US is lying big time rn. We're trying to act like Ansar Allah hasn't carried out targeted sanctions on Israel.

        We're definitely going to hide losses. I heard people saying we claimed to have shot down every single missile, but Ansar Allah accounts posted videos claiming hits.

        I think with the anti-Arab racism it will be way harder to admit losses. We don't even want people to perceive that they control the country more than the govt in exile I'm sure.

      • Outdoor_Catgirl [she/her, they/them]
        ·
        11 months ago

        Extremely unlikely that f22 would be in use here. It can't fly from carriers like the f18 and f35, and is mainly designed to carry air to air missiles rather than bombs.