There hasn't been too many exciting events going on lately, mostly a continuation of previous trends.

Europe's general decline into fascism continues, with the Netherlands' coalition government falling; Finland's new right-wing government having a bunch of fascist chucklefucks leading to a circus over there; Spain's elections don't look too positive either. France's new riots were impressive but lead nowhere, predictably, and the power of the police has only been boosted. Erdogan wants into the EU and they deserve eachother tbh. Sweden will probably get NATO membership this year but the power of Orban and Erdogan to draw things out until they get concessions also shouldn't be underestimated.

The Middle East is still on the mend generally, though one senses we're past the honeymoon period. Israel is the only one generating big headlines nowadays, and the Palestinian resistance continues to fight back (with a renewed vigor now I think, after Jenin).

Africa continues to be fought over by the West and Russia+China, with leaders (Iran's Raisi, for example) making trips over there; there's gonna be a big African summit in Russia soon. Mali wants the UN out of their country, and Wagner might help them keep the... well, "peace" is the wrong word, but help them fight internal forces. Minerals are all the rage, with countries striking deals with the West and China to get better agreements or improve transportation and infrastructure. We still don't know what's going on with the South Africa summit and Putin, other than it's confirmed to be in person, but that's a month away. Sudan continues to be a festering sore - whatever hope there was initially of there not being a civil war has long since faded.

In South America, Honduras has given up their ties with Taiwan and struck deals with China and hopes to get some of that Belt and Road good stuff. Paraguay remains on Taiwan's side, and given that their new president was just elected and then immediately went off to Taiwan, I assume that the next 6 years are secured for Taiwan there. Lula is improving Brazil generally, while getting attacked by the western MSM for being too tough on Bolsonaro (they obviously need their own national clown around to generate headlines and fear for them - why doesn't Lula?!) Argentina's monetary situation is critical but things are still chugging along with a little help from China. Peru, once one of the most China-friendly countries in the hemisphere, is fully in transition to US-occupied state, with the US military setting up shop there - Boluarte's approval ratings continue to plummet and the people there are protesting the coup government. One senses that the US is no longer tolerating deviation in foreign policy from their EU vassals, so the EU is beginning to attack Cuba now whereas before they had at least some sympathy, while the US parks nuclear submarines there; correspondingly, Russia, China, and Iran are boosting ties.

There's been some talk about an anti-Modi coalition in India but truthfully I just don't know enough to know if this stands a chance or if this is the kind of thing that happens regularly over there before collapsing into infighting like other countries. There's also been flooding in India and South Korea as the monsoon hits them, at record levels. South Korea's government is becoming ever more vassalized, now pledging support to Ukraine whereas before they were at least attempted to maintain good ties with Russia (though perhaps disarming SK isn't a bad thing for the DPRK). DPRK had a failed non-military satellite launch - it's confirmed non-military because the West fished it out of the sea and checked it. On that note, the China balloon thing was quietly admitted to not be a spy balloon at all by the Pentagon, though everybody is still pretending it is. China itself is having some interesting scientific developments, and the state of the economy is quite controversial now, with some arguing it's good and others arguing it's bad, and each side has their own figures and macroeconomic indicators to throw at each other to prove their point - I myself would describe it as "not great, not terrible" especially given that the world economy is still struggling with a manufacturing recession and inflationary trends and core inflation that isn't coming down. If there was hope that China could just ditch the US in the so-called "Great Divergence", those predictions have been... not wrong, but premature and a little too hopeful I think, as non-western countries don't seem to be developed enough yet to fully handle China's exports. Nonetheless, after getting hit by that wave of semiconductor equipment bans, China has punched back and banned components containing germanium and gallium, key elements for chip development and which they have the majority of the processing for on the planet - how successful the West will be in replacing this, it's too soon to say. The semiconductor industry outside China is very visibly wilting though, with Taiwan and South Korea getting hit real hard by double-digit declines in semiconductor output, prompting subsidies from those countries. The Philippines has confirmed that it is a US vassal with some new military bases, yet desires to have autonomy in conflicts, essentially saying that it's purely for self-defense - whether the US will respect that, we shall eventually see. India has also signaled that it is happy to let the US order them around, with hope that India and China could somehow settle their differences vanishing in a puff of smoke, but their ties with Russia seem sacred and I think the US begrudgingly accepts this and is just saying to itself "Well, at least they still hate China with us."

As for multipolarity progress: new local currency deals are being forged all the time - even by India, showing that it truly is more than just countries that hate the US that might benefit - but there's been no big, holy shit deals in a little while. The debt situation in developing countries is actively worsening, and we'll have to see whether the BRICS summit can offer us any big news in that fight. The West is still losing on the whole I would say, but we're past the triumphant first stages of declaring a new world order and making peace deals, and now in the gritty, dirty battle phase, which will probably continue for years to come.

Much will depend on what happens in Europe over derisking, in the Indo-Pacific, and internally in the US with interest rate hikes and potential recessions. Some predict that the Wizard of Delaware, Dark Brandon, is carrying out unholy economic rituals in America of such high intellect and foresight that they will allow him to snatch victory and keep the US empire going, while others dunk on the idea of the US reindustrializing and recovering from this mess and confidently proclaim that Brandon is an idiot sitting behind a curtain, wondering where President Obama is, while Putin and Xi run circles around him.

And, as I said in the preamble, almost every country is currently facing acute problems with the climate and water supplies and food (with the notable exception of Russia), though some are obviously suffering more immediately than others - Uruguay, Egypt, a couple of others come to mind.

Crimea bridge 2, yawn tbqh