Image is of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and the fastest sinking city in the world. A new capital is being built elsewhere in Indonesia.
I was going to make Indonesia the COTW anyway (unless something really massive happened somewhere else) due to the elections that might really designate the end of an era in Indonesian politics. Michael Roberts wrote up a big piece on Indonesia about a week ago, one day before the election began, so a lot of this information is coming from him.
Indonesia has been ruled by President Joko Widodo for 10 years, but is now barred from a third term constitutionally. Under his presidency, the Indonesian economy has seen fairly good GDP growth overall - about 5% per year, or an average of 4% per capita - and is broadly popular with the electorate. The biggest problems are the common ones, such as a lack of jobs and a high cost of living. Widodo's successors have naturally promised more jobs and an economic plan that clearly draws at least some inspiration from China's rise from the periphery to the heights of the world economy and manufacturing, but this seems pretty unlikely for Indonesia because, well, Indonesia is ruled by capitalist bourgeoisie parties and China is not. Indonesia's main gigs are palm oil, nickel ore, and oil, with internal manufacturing of these primary commodities only slowly growing and reliant on foreign labour.
Indonesia has a rather big employment problem. On the face of it, things don't seem bad, with an unemployment rate of only 5% - but this is only because it counts anybody who works even a couple hours per week. 60% of the workers in Indonesia are in the informal sector, with no real labour rights, sick pay, or guaranteed wages. And half of the ~8 million unemployed are young people. Indonesia is the sixth most unequal country on the planet, with at least 36% of the population in poverty, and the four richest men own as much as the bottom 100 million. This was a natural consequence of the policies of the dictator Suharto, who came to power in a coup overthrowing the communist nationalist leader Sukarno and killing one million communists, a period covered by Bevin's The Jakarta Method. At a fundamental level, not that much has changed since Suharto, and the country seems doomed to a path of slowing economic growth and massive amounts of environmental degradation under a plundering elite who will presumably fly off to New Zealand with the rest of them once the seas swallow the country, unless a communist movement can be rebuilt from ashes and can learn the lessons of 1965-66.
Though results have yet to be officially announced, it seems that 72-year-old Prabowo Subianto is overwhelmingly likely to have handily won the election. Once banned from the United States for human rights violations - a truly phenomenal feat - he has been the Minister of Defense since 2019, was an army lieutenant under Suharto and was his son-in-law. While this is obviously a particularly bad outcome, none of the other candidates seemed likely to fundamentally alter the trajectory of Indonesia, so the game was rigged from the start.
The Country of the Week is Indonesia! 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.
Kanada loves nazis. Wasn't even the first one invited to parliment. I'll never believe they didn't know what they were doing. It wasn't even the first time!
has legal precedent that “just following orders” and earnestly believing in fascist propaganda are a legitimate defence for committing nazi war crimes.In Canada’s first war crimes prosecution, the Canadian Supreme Court acquitted nazi collaborator Imre Finta, on the grounds that he was “just following orders” and that he sincerely believed that “the Jews were subversive and disloyal.”
Your honor. Caaa’maaan. Can my client really be blamed for thinking this?
Good to see Canada stand up to cancel culture. I interviewed Mr. Hunka on my show on X, formerly known as Twitter. We had a great discussion about Obama getting blownI wonder what would happen if Russia offered diplomatic support to Israel and condemn Hamas of Israel in return requested the extradition.
- Show
Trump was very uncomfortable during his meeting with milei at CPAC, he literally jumped and kept grabbing him and Trump of course doesn't like physical contact too much lmao. It's embarrassing, milei was like a 12 year old girl who just had a meet&greet with her favorite BTS idol or something. Grow the fuck up, fucking weirdo.
But wait, milei is at CPAC? How? he's a Libertarian... not a Conservative, why is he hanging out with conservatives and fascis... oh.
I will not post the vide of milei adoring Trump because it has levels of cringe so high I think Hexbear cannot handle it.
The other author is her nephew. She also liked some of the tweets that South Africa submitted to the Hague, lol.
US ambassador to the UN, after vetoing a Gaza ceasefire resolution:
“We will continue to actively engage in the hard work of direct diplomacy on the ground until we reach a Final Solution.”
https://twitter.com/BertaAdvantage/status/1760024501969154299
Hamas on China: https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1760678652436754600
BREAKING: HAMAS OFFICIAL STATEMENT
We appreciate the position expressed by the People's Republic of China, during the public hearings held by the International Court of Justice, on the legal consequences of the occupation policies in the Palestinian Territory, and its affirmation of the legality of the occupied peoples' pursuit of self-determination, by various means, including armed resistance, and the necessity not to confuse terrorism with And the armed struggle practiced by the Palestinian people against the Zionist occupation.
We also value the positions of the countries participating in the sessions, which confirmed the widespread violations of international law practiced by the terrorist occupation entity against the Palestinian people and their occupied land, including massacres and genocide in the Gaza Strip, violations, killing, and expansion of settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and work to bring about demographic changes in the Palestinian land. It aims to Judaize her and tamper with her identity.
The terrorist occupation government’s boycott of the court sessions confirms once again its disregard for international institutions, and its policy of turning its back on international resolutions and commitments, which requires a clear position from the international community to end the rogue Zionist occupation, and to stop all its violations and crimes against our Palestinian people.
Unsurprisingly, the Biden admin has veto yet another ceasefire resolution at the UN.
Our solidarity with brother Lula, unjustly declared as "persona non grata", for defending the life and dignity of the Palestinian people in the face of the genocide in Gaza carried out by the State of Israel. Being declared persona non grata by a genocidal government that carries out massacres against children, is a privilege that reaffirms the commitment for life and peace before the international community and the peoples of the world.
- Evo Morales
Gigachad Lula has withdrawn its Ambassador from the Zionist Entiy of Horror , Madness and Vanity...
Chile, Colombia and Brazil have recalled their Ambassadors. Bolivia have broke off relations with Israel. Venezuela have no relations with Israel.
Korea hasn't had diplomatic relations with the illegal zionist entity since sometimes in the 1970's.
Remember the sleezy asshole that defected from Russia to Ukraine in a Mi-8 helicopter for half a million dollars at the cost of the lives of two Russian crewmen, who were shot by Ukrainians without mercy, and was lauded around the world as a hero for truth and democracy?
Well he was just found dead in Spain, probably enjoying the high life with his blood money, pumped full of bullet holes and ran over.
Good riddance.
BTW it's now about two weeks since I read some military expert dork confidently predict that the Americans would have wrapped up this whole Houthi business in a fortnight's time or so.
