Image is of Brazilian chuds storming the National Congress building in opposition to Lula winning the election, on January 8th, 2023, in their remarkably even shittier version of the January 6th events in America.

Bolsonaro, who is in the tragic category of pro-US South American leaders who are so awful and uncharismatic that even they can't get the US to help them overthrow a democratically elected left-ish government, has recently been facing that most elusive of things in this current world order: consequences for his actions. Bolsonaro and his friends have been under investigation by the police, and his passport has now been seized, meaning he is unable to leave the country. Alongside the man himself, the leader of the Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, has been caught up in searches and investigations. Brazilian Army Colonel Bernardo Correa Neto, a former aide to Bolsonaro, was very recently arrested upon his return to Brazil from the US, as well as another colonel.

From the Hexbear South American correspondent (a position I just made up), @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net:

Lol, they are really fucked. Iirc, this is a municipal election year in Brazil, Bolsonaro can't campaign publicly, he can't promote his candidates. The leader of his party is currently in prison. And even if he is released from prison, they are forbidden to communicate with each other. The high-ranking members of the Liberal Party are pretty much fucked because they can't communicate with each other and getting support from Bolsonaro could be very bad, as left-wing candidates will exploit the fact that Bolsonaro will probably be imprisoned for planning a coup.

The FBI seems to have concluded its investigation into Bolsonaro's money laundering scheme in the US and handed over its findings to the Brazilian Federal Police, I don't think Bolsonaro can even go to the US anymore, or any other country. And it could get even funnier, there is a very small chance of the Liberal Party being banned and all its seats in congress and the senate being transferred to other politicians, many of whom, even if they are conservative, will be much more favorable to Lula's social and economic reforms, as it has been proven that Bolsonaro used the party to finance the coup.

The Country of the Week is Brazil! 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.

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]M
    ·
    8 months ago
    Hezbollah, PIJ chiefs meet as Israel escalates attacks on Gaza and Lebanon

    By The Cradle.

    Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah met with the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, Ziad al-Nakhala, on 12 February in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. During the meeting, “the latest developments in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank were reviewed,” Hezbollah said via its media page on Monday. “The conditions of the support and assistance fronts provided by the axis of resistance in various arenas” were also discussed. “Discussions took place about the existing possibilities and expected developments, whether at the field level or political communications. The two parties stressed the need to remain steadfast and continue working forcefully to achieve the promised victory.”

    The meeting comes three days after Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Lebanon. On the second day of his visit, 10 February, Amir-Abdollahian met with Nasrallah and discussed developments in Gaza and the region. He also met with leaders representing several Palestinian resistance factions, including Nakhala, Hamas official Osama Hamdan, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Jameel Mezher.

    “Signs of victory are on the horizon … time is in favor of the resistance,” Nakhala said during the meeting. Amir-Abdollahian earlier held a press conference with his Lebanese counterpart Abdullah Bou Habib, during which he vowed that a broader Israeli war against Lebanon would mark Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “last day.” Israel has continued to escalate the situation in Lebanon, killing at least three in a drone strike on the town of Jadra on Saturday. The strike was much deeper into Lebanese territory than usual. According to Hebrew media, it targeted Hamas commander Basel Salah, who reportedly survived the attack. Hezbollah continues to bombard Israeli military sites daily.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]M
      ·
      8 months ago
      Israel faces 'chilling reality' of war with Hezbollah: Report

      By The Cradle.

      A group of Israeli think tanks partnered to draft a detailed report examining the "chilling reality facing Israel in a war with Hezbollah," Israeli news outlet Calcalist reported on 12 February. The 130-page report, which was drafted before the outbreak of war on 7 October, is the work of six think tanks consisting of over 100 terrorism experts, former senior security officials, academics, and government officials who examined Israel's level of preparedness in the event of a multi-front war.

      Foremost among the many threats Israel would face in the case of a full-scale war with the Lebanese resistance movement is the thousands of rockets and precision missiles that would rain down on Israeli military bases – including airbases – and cities, overwhelming Israel's missile defenses. Calcalist stated that the report predicted Hezbollah attacks "would cause immense destruction in Israel, including thousands of casualties on both the frontlines and the home front, causing public panic, a central objective of the multi-front attack will be to collapse the IDF's air defense systems." Hezbollah would employ precision-guided munitions and low-signature weapons, such as loitering munitions, drones, and standoff missiles to destroy Iron Dome batteries.

      Leading the research is Professor Boaz Ganor, who described the threat of Hezbollah rocket and missile fire: "They have an arsenal that consists of about 150,000 rockets and missiles, and our working assumption is that they would launch about 3,000 at us each day of the war, which according to our estimates, would last about 21 days." While claiming Israel would still win such a war, the report said that the Israeli public's expectations of security would be "shattered" and that the threat of Israeli retaliation would not be enough to deter Hezbollah rocket and missile fire. "The expectation of the public and of a significant portion of the leadership, that the Israeli Air Force and effective Israeli intelligence systems will succeed in preventing most of the rocket attacks on Israel, will be shattered. This is also the case regarding the public's belief that the threat of Israeli retaliation or a substantial Israeli attack on significant Lebanese assets will force Hezbollah to cease fire or significantly impair their ability to continue attacking Israeli territory," said the report.

      Israeli leaders regularly threaten to destroy Beirut, including by targeting civilian areas, in the way they are currently destroying Gaza, should a full-scale war with Hezbollah erupt. Calcalist said, "Chaos will intensify when Hezbollah sends hundreds of Radwan commandos to seize towns and villages, and IDF posts along the Lebanese border. The IDF will have to fight within Israeli territory, diverting efforts from operations on the ground in Lebanon to take control of launch areas." The report added that Israel would face attacks from other armed groups from Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza, which comprise the Axis of Resistance. The report's authors also examined what an Israeli pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah could look like, but that section was prohibited from publication by Israeli military censors.

      • GlueBear [they/them, comrade/them]
        ·
        8 months ago

        Chilling reality

        Let's be honest they probably didn't think they'd have to fight Hezbollah and are just realizing the direction the situation is going to take.