Argentina is an interesting microcosm of the more widespread war that every other currency is waging against the dollar - in this case, the yuan is taking on the dollar in gladiatorial combat.
The Argentinian economy, like many, is fully permeated by the American dollar, but it has its own official currency, the Argentinian peso. This may not be for long: one of the major contenders for the Argentinian presidency has proposed replacing the national currency of Argentina with the dollar, which would therefore mean that an even more substantial part of the economy would be decided, with no input from Argentina, thousands of miles away. This is not unprecedented - Ecuador already does this, as does Zimbabwe, Timor-Leste, Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. The motivation for doing so may also be convincing to Argentinian voters, as the country has faced hyperinflation, ever-increasing benchmark interest rates, and chronic shortages of dollar reserves.
However, the yuan has entered the scene, particularly over the last couple months. The Economy Minister met with Chinese officials in early June to sign a co-operation plan to promote the Belt and Road Initiative. Commercial banks can now open deposit accounts in yuan, and securities can now be issued in the yuan. The Western media, as one might expect, emphasizes how utterly desperate Argentina must be to go to the yuan - the yuan! - to sort out its economic crisis.
Whirlpool Corp, a major American appliances company, has said that it is considering paying with the yuan to import parts for a new factory in Argentina. Over 500 Argentine companies making a plethora of products have requested to pay for imports in yuan.
The share of yuan transactions in Argentina's foreign currency market hit a daily record of 28% in late June, compared to a high of 5% in May.
And last week, Argentina opted to use the yuan to settle part of its debt with the IMF for the first time, and it will be interesting to see if other countries follow their example.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.
The first update this week is here in the comments.
The second update this week is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have decent analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources. Beware of chuddery.
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 journalist reporting in the warzone.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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 still quite reactionary in terms of gender and sexuality and race, so beware). 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 ~ Another 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's army.
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
The GOP is using actual genocidal rhetoric and legislation against trans people though.
I think that’s probably an overreaction compared to a genocide like the Holocaust. All of my leftist friends say voting for Biden/the Dems for “harm reduction” is a fruitless endeavor, if Trump/DeSantis were actually going to genocide the LGBT community I doubt they’d say that since it wouldn’t be very pragmatic. I think both parties are fairly similar in terms of working for capital first and foremost
I agree with your friends on the harm reduction nonsense to the extent that I even wonder if more harm has come about under Biden than would have under Trump, but no way of knowing for sure.
Without a doubt. But there are different factions of capital/bourgeoisie and only one of the two parties is passing legislation that allows the kidnapping of trans children (or children of trans parents) and discrimination at the level of refusing medical treatment to trans people (and I don't just mean giving them access to care for transitioning, but outright letting them bleed to death on the street after a car accident). Wasn't it
who was saying we have to kill trans people before they kill us or some shit?
I don't really care which political party is spewing the rhetoric vs which is passively allowing it to happen. I was really just commenting on the lumping in of claims of Russian genocide against Ukrainians and CCP genocide against Uyghurs, which are both utterly false, with the very real ramping up of genocidal rhetoric against trans people in the US.
Edit: Here are some comments from a couple months ago about using the term for what's been going on in the US.
I get all of that but that doesn’t square with this:
I asked one of my friends again who is worse on trans rights Trump or DeSantis and they said Meatball Ron truly wants trans people to no longer exist. Biden himself seems fairly pro-trans rights so even if the Dems suck ass as a whole the guy who literally hates the community is probably more of a threat? I don’t get the opposition toward the harm reduction vote for Sleepy Joe angle. They sent me more stuff DeSantis has said and it’s really next level hate damn.
Specifically on trans issues? Sure, republicans are worse than democrats, no question. What I said about Biden having done more harm than perhaps Trump would have was a general statement though. For example, I don't think the situation in Ukraine would be anywhere near the level of escalation that it is, and may well not have happened at all. It has been said around here that Biden was the actual accelerationism candidate in 2020, not Trump, and I think that's accurate. Coming back specifically to trans issues, even if republicans are demonstrably worse, it's worth noting that all of the legislation mentioned above happened under a democrat president. The democrats don't give a shit about trans people, but will happily use them as culture war leverage. They don't want trans people truly protected in any meaningful way because that would make it harder to keep using them to be able to say "see, we aren't trying to stir up a genocide like the republicans are!" More ratchet effect in action.
There's a larger conversation to be had if you don't get the opposition towards "harm reduction" voting, part of it being simply how useless it is in bourgeois democracy regardless. But all I really wanted to get at when I first replied to your comment was that we should definitely call out the claims of Russia and China committing genocide as harmful lies. We should NOT act like what is happening with trans people particularly in Florida is anything like those other two examples, because it is crossing that boundary into actual genocidal behavior.
I agree the quotes sound like Hitler talking about the Jews, it is genocidal rhetoric. Weirdly enough it doesn’t seem like Trump truly hates trans people and he’s even defended them in the past but if the party wanted him to sign a bill ordering the liquidation of all trans people of course he’d do so without hesitation since he doesn’t really have any principles himself. I do think there is a small portion of Democrats who do truly care about trans rights and aren’t just paying lip service but as a whole I get what you’re saying. Thanks for the insights