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.

guaido-despair guaido

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

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

  • JohnBrownsBussy2 [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    5 months ago

    This more recent article from the Orinoco tribune has more context as well:

    Orinoco Tribune - 6/28/24 - Diosdado Cabello: Candidate Enrique Márquez’s Financier is Fugitive Rafael Ramírez, and So-Called ‘Communists’ Support Him

    Article text

    Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—The first vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello, has made a report that the fugitive from justice and former president of PDVSA during the government of President Hugo Chávez, Rafael Ramírez, is the financier of the far-right opposition candidate Enrique Márquez, from the Centrados political party.

    During episode #482 of his television program Con el Mazo Dando this Thursday, June 27, Cabello said that Márquez receives money from Ramírez “to stay in the campaign and to maintain his news outlet, El Político.” He added that Márquez “ended up being Rafael Ramírez’s hidden piece to play with María Corina Machado and Leopoldo López,” according to AVN.

    Enrique Márquez and Edmundo González, candidates from the far-right opposition Unitary Platform party (PUD), recently declined to sign a pact to respect the electoral results and reject violence following the upcoming July 28 presidential elections. Some analysts speculate that Márquez could be a wild card in the hands of the far-right opposition, in case some legal initiatives against the PUD were to put them in the position of losing their chance to run in the presidential elections at the last minute. This theory is consistent with the tactics of the Venezuelan far-right, to attack the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) and thus the legitimacy of what they would consider to be an adverse electoral result.

    Cabello also mentioned that the support of Óscar Figuera, head of what remains of the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV), for Márquez also came through Leopoldo López and Rafael Ramírez, since Figuera had initially intended to support the right-wing candidate, Antonio Ecarri. He explained that the relationship between López and Ramírez, both fugitives, is long-standing.

    In August 2023, the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) ruled in favor of a group of PCV party members that questioned the legitimacy of Óscar Figuera and the leadership of the PCV. These party members received the legal representation of the traditional communist party, and later decided to join with the PSUV within the Great Patriotic Pole Simón Bolívar (GPPSB), the coalition of political parties supporting the re-election bid of President Nicolás Maduro.

    Diosdado Cabello also noted that this is not the first time the old PCV leadership has aligned itself with far-right factors, as he recalled its support for center-right president Rafael Caldera during the 1993 presidential elections. He noted that despite the PCV leadership’s explanation of that support as the result of an agreement to free those involved in the 1992 civic-military rebellion led by Commander Hugo Chávez, among which Cabello was an important leader, he could attest that such an agreement in fact never existed, nor was it ever consulted or discussed with the rebellion’s leadership.

    The PSUV deputy further showed a photo of the ceremony, held this Tuesday, June 25, where Óscar Figuera gave his support to Enrique Márquez, a former Democratic Action party (AD) politician, a party linked to many atrocities against communists during the 60s and 70s, and presented a series of social media posts by Enrique Márquez where his anti-communist nature can be seen clearly.

    He noted that another so-called Chavista dissident, Juan Barreto, was also part of the group that supported the candidacy of Márquez, and Cabello questioned the pretense of socialist and communist values of both Barreto and Figuera. During Tuesday’s announcement, Óscar Figuera took the stage to confirm his support for Márquez, stating that the party had tried to nominate a candidate from the grassroots, but that the CNE had not allowed it, in reference to the TSJ’s ruling.