Image is from this Reuters article.
This week marks the one year anniversary of Honduras ceasing to recognize Taiwan and instead only recognizing China. Over that time period, China and Honduras have gone through several rounds of negotiating a free trade agreement, with trade expanding. Additionally, they have just signed a $275 million cooperation agreement, providing education infrastructure for Honduras.
The other major news piece relevant to Honduras is the battle against Prospera, a US-based crypto libertarian firm that sought to buy a private island in order to create an ancap paradise, in which Bitcoin would be legal tender. In 2022, Honduras killed the island's special status that made the deal possible, and so Prospera is seeking $11 billion in compensation.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Honduras! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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.
My first reaction was to say that, despite it being an incredibly bitterly pill to swallow, the coldly rational choice is to do nothing.
I’ve been trying to work out how this isn’t the case, but so far haven’t figured it out. To do nothing is so unsatisfying. It’s exactly the kind of response someone like Gorbachev would have. But ending all life on earth, if that is the outcome, closes all doors. If you are ending humanity, then the nuclear response is ultimately pointless revenge. I suppose if you relax that assumption some - that there’s still a remnant of humanity that carries on - then I might agree with what zed says about how you are just leaving humanity in horrible position if you don’t respond. Where the US acts with impunity and starts dropping nukes like the US imposes sanctions today. Because if we’re talking about actual Americans… there’s no way most Americans will even flinch at killing hundreds of millions of people they think “deserved it”. This will not lead to some mea culpa on the part of America where they decide to build a better world and are ashamed of what they did.
It’s a fun thought exercise though, for sure.
I'm reminded of Newcomb's paradox.
The point of a second strike isn't to get revenge. The point of a second strike is to prevent a first strike. But if the first strike has already happened, hasn't the second strike already failed? If so, what's the point of launching it?
But the first strike is only launched when there is no fear of a second strike. If American intelligence finds out that Chinese nuclear commanders would not actually launch a second strike, you can bet your ass we begin bombing in five minutes.
A second strike prevents America from doing it again with India/Pakistan/NK/Russia etc. There is no paradox.
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I think it's pretty clear that if your country is going through a pacifist movement of self-disarmament, you will not be able to return a second strike.
Political leaders can say whatever they want in times of peace. Once the nuclear powers are at each other's throats, nuclear pacifist rhetoric becomes dangerous. Imagine if there was a nuclear pacifist movement in the USSR that was succeeding during a time of high tensions. Khrushchev says that the USSR would not return a second strike if the USA nukes them first. Bombing would've begun in five minutes.
I think you can.
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What on earth are you supposed to gain from this? There is literally nothing to be gained from doing this. This is like trying to convince the (imperfect) predictor in Newcomb's paradox that you will pick both boxes, and then only picking box B. Box B is empty, and you have played yourself.
Do not underestimate the bloodthirstiness of American leaders. Douglas MacArthur infamously wanted to nuke China during the Korean war.
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Yeah it’s a difficult one for sure. If a billion Chinese people were killed by reckless Biden/Trump’s decision, the American people wouldn’t do anything at all? That’s bleak… but it’s not unprecedented with the atomic bombing in Japan.
To say they would do nothing at all was probably an exaggeration on my part. When you’re an American, and you have grown up seeing how little your fellow Americans care about deaths in places like Iraq and Gaza, it’s hard not to become cynical.
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