Image is of a colectivo: an armed group, usually operating in impoverished areas, which act to support and defend the socialist government of Venezuela. They are often derided as vigilante terrorist groups which prop up the government, because cops are only bad when they are socialist and not murdering minorities, I suppose.
Maduro's party, the PSUV, has won the election after a staggering amount of propaganda by the opposition, who said their polls suggested they were going to win and that Maduro's loss was inevitable. The reaction across Latin America is what one would expect. Left-leaning leaders are generally respecting the results and congratulating Maduro, while those on the right and/or are US puppets (such as in semirecently-couped Peru) are calling for recounts, or even that the election was illegitimate. The US itself is also unhappy about the results. We shall soon see if their unhappiness boils over into yet another coup attempt.
Personally, I think they should have ran Guaido again.
Thank you to @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net for the election coverage here, and everything else they do in the news megathread.
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 Venezuela! 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.
Israel bombed my hometown Beirut. Very strange feeling, because I'm not sad nor angry. The feeling in shia and revolutionary circles is more "thank you Israel", because we want this war. We want to have a direct reason to hit Tel Aviv, we want our troops to burn the occupied Golan, we want our missiles to fill the settlers with fear and panic. Alhamdullilah and may Allah accept the martyrs. My eyes will not be filled with the sight of Beirut for a long time, which really pains my heart, but if our collective sacrifices result in even one hour of pain for the zionists, then it was worth it.
فَٱرْتَقِبْ يَوْمَ تَأْتِى ٱلسَّمَآءُ بِدُخَانٍۢ مُّبِينٍۢ
"Then watch for the Day when the sky will bring a visible smoke"
Quran - Surat Al Dukhan - 10
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this isn't them "going all out", it's not them casting off their self-imposed shackles and fighting their enemies with all their previously undisplayed strength, they're just pissing everybody off and losing as fascist regimes always do before they fall
"Different parts of the IDF are fighting each other, IDF can't coordinate w/ the police, lawmakers are fighting the army & each other, there is attempted violent takeover of military property underway & big (select) groups of citizens are armed.
Closest i've ever experienced to state breakdown. It has all the ingredients for the gov't to try & justify imposing martial law on citizens - unprecedented
Hamas, Hezbollah could never have imagined how much they would succeed. This is better than they even dreamed."
Recently released classified documents show that claims of Soviet "brainwashing" during the 1950's were run to counter claims of US biological warfare in Korea
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This isn't really new information, but it's interesting that the feds just admit it nowNo political death has ever hit me as hard as the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh did today. What a catastrophe. I have been legitimately feeling paralysed today, could barely eat the whole day. I have much to say about this, but we all need to process this tragedy first. God give us all strength and power, these last two days have been draining emotionally and it will only get worse and worse. As for the man himself, our history when we're victorious will be very kind on him, may Allah grant him the highest ranks of Paradise. They killed his children, his grandchildren and then killed him.
I'd like to leave this here, the Martyr Ismail Haniyeh leading friday prayers in Qatar:
https://youtu.be/nxDGQvuQh1Q
It took 19 days for the US to announce the final results of it's 2000 presidential elections, in which the loser of the popular vote was declared President. But after 4 days, members of Congress have decided the oil-rich nation of Venezuela is moving too slow.
Reddit is so astroturfed these days it's insane. The broadcast local news my parents watch has stories about the riots in Britain but r/news and r/worldnews has almost nothing
Not a bad fucking summary, TBH (it ignores the political importance of some of those people murdered, but that's more on the provocation front than the how-bad-a-crime-it-is front):
Mohamad Safa (@mhdksafa)
In 48 hours:
Israel bombed civilians in 5 countries.
Israel debated if it's okay to rape Palestinians.
Israel killed the man they’re negotiating with.
Israel violated UN resolutions, Geneva and Vienna Conventions.
Israel killed the journalists covering these events.
liberals when racist right wing goons try to steal an election in the USA.
liberals when racist right wing goons try to steal an election in the global south.France's gymnastics program is so fucked that one of their gymnasts quit to represent Algeria instead and she just won gold
Holy fucking shit, the Venezuela opposition sucks at this. They are posting the so called "leaked" "real" results, but the text is all in english. WHY THE FUCK WOULD VENEZUELA USE ENGLISH ON THEIR ELECTORAL SYSTEM?
British fascists set fire to hotel housing asylum seekers
Starmer’s Britain
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dems really be playing game of thrones shit over the silliest position in empire
