Thread image created by yours truly, depicting Iran and Pakistan very impolitely not asking whether America, on the other side of the planet, is okay with them transporting gas around.
The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline has long been obstructed by American involvement in the region. Iran completed its section of the pipeline quite quickly, but Pakistan has been unable to finish its construction for a decade due to the fear of falling afoul of American sanctions on Iran. The United States has repeatedly tried to pressure Pakistan to give up the project and obtain gas from other countries instead. Recent articles on the state of the pipeline are contradictory, with some stating that Iran or Pakistan have given up on the pipeline while American sanctions persist. Pakistani officials reject this framing, saying that they are still working with Iran to try and get the project completed somehow. Nonetheless, Iran is becoming increasingly frustrated and is threatening a legal battle and a demand for reparations.
Meanwhile, back in Niger, the $13 billion under-construction pipeline connecting Nigeria and other West African countries to Spain and Italy will likely face delays due to the sanctions applied by the West and ECOWAS on Niger. Those following the European gas fiasco will be aware that while Spain and Italy have been impacted by the energy crisis, they have been very busy making deals with African countries to replace their Russian gas, and thus stand a better chance than Germany of making it through the crisis with their industries somewhat intact. The coup has thrown a wrench into their plans, though they can still obtain some gas from northern African countries.
And, last but not least, America tried for years to stop the construction of the Nord Stream pipelines between Germany and Russia, which culminated in them deciding to blow them up late last year.
All in all - the United States really does not like it when countries build up energy infrastructure and gain some independence from them.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
This week's third update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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 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
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.
not looking great at all.
as these were the primaries - is there any hope that something can be done to stop the ancap destroying the country, like parties or contenders banding together or something, or is Argentina just toast now? he got like 30% of the vote I think, which is a lot higher than he should have gotten but still isn't a majority
IIRC Argentina has been indebted for decades and the case doesn't seem to improve. So it is just natural that there are actual Ancaps trying to push for abandoning the country's currency for the USD (according to Geopolitical Economy Report and that interview with Ha Joon-Chang).
I guess the optics the Ancaps are trying to sell to the population is that free market and a better integration with the US's economy apparatus are going to help with investment and jumpstart the economy, but we all know the real reason is to help with capital fly and it's just a way to the wealthy interest group to prepare for a rug pull.
We had a period where we could have ended all the debts the different neoliberals put on us to automatically funnel the money to their Panama accounts, but succdems gonna succdem and then people chose the same neoliberals to do the exact same thing again, and boy did they did it.
From that moment, economic policy became a stupid echo of the sequence we already lived:
last dictatorship ecopol (Macri gov) -> Alfonsin ecopol (Alberto Fernandez) -> Menem ecopol (Bullrich / Milei / Massa if some kind of planet alignment happen and he somehow wins)
First as a tragedy, now as farce, etc
I don't think they're going to band together, because who is even going to lead that coalition? The key issue here is that Milei and Bullrich are friendly to each other, in the past they held talks about forming a possible electoral front, promising cabinet positions and so on. So in reality, this race between the two is more like a friendly contest than anything else, it now depends on the individuals and their aspirations. Whoever wins is most likely going to make very friendly offers to the other (example: Milei winning and offering the Ministry of Security to Bullrich, a post she used to hold in Macri's presidency).
Another thing is the nature of the primaries. During the primaries, people vote because the vote is almost worthless (unless you're a small party trying to make it to the 1,5% minumum required to compete in the Generals or you have an actual primary going on within your party), and in the past we have seen very wild tendencies during the primaries and a completely different thing during the generals. Last election cycle, Fernandez absolutely wiped the floor with incumbent Macri during the primaries, but in the generals the election was so much closer. This can be the case of an anomaly, people voted Milei "to send a message", people might have voted Milei as a "punishment vote" against the Government and the principal opposition group, not because "they're serious about it". Punishment votes are a common practice, at least here, several candidates in the past were voted not for ideological reasons, but to punish certain parties for being shit.
The future is not uncertain, it's dark. An election between a Bolsonaro with long hair and a female Bolsonaro awaits, one wants to militarize the police because crime rates, the other wants you to sell your own baby if you can't make it to the end of the month, if you have a spare lung you might as well just sell it (He's legit about this, libertarian moment anyway). My only hope is that Peronism implodes and all the votes scattered around are taken by the left. Left-wing Christian Juan Grabois did a decent election (especially for a guy smeared by the media 24/7), 1.3 million votes is not bad even though he lost the primaries to Sergio Massa (5 million votes). The Left did pretty meh, 600k is all there is, but I think if we play our cards right (we will most likely wont, for a reason I'll explain soon) we can get a chunk of these 1.3 million voters, maybe.
And why we won't play our cards right? Because Trots, despite being my comrades, are dogmatic. Like I understand being the "party for the revolution" but holy shit, open up a little. In general I am in agreement with them, but there are key things I disagree with, one being the over-reliance on Dogmatic Trotskyism, it is their way and their way only, it's heavily disappointing because you can build a leftist movement but they're just excluding whoever because it doesn't fit in their own version of how things should be. This isn't natural to Trotskyism, but to many other more radical left wing parties, but it's disappointing to see regardless.
It's sad, Peronism has stolen leftist votes and Milei has stolen leftist messages. This could be a wonderful place to build Socialism but here we are, barely hanging on. I just hope the Gestapo-like officer who's going to execute me at least sold one of his lugs to pay for the bullet...
Regardless, Communism will win. Even in the most desperate and adverse situations, we will find a way out, because this fight is for our own survival. I feel like a positive message needs to be sent.