Image is of the Cuban flag and the Pride flag on the Havana Health Ministry building.

Inspired by a highly upvoted recommendation by @Commiejones@hexbear.net:

We need to kill the Mega Posting Wars meme. It wasn't very funny to start with and now I get the feeling some people are taking it way too seriously. Clogging up the news thread with bullshit just to try to out post the trans mega is just dumb and annoying.

The News Megathread is now under trans martial law:

  1. Loving trans people on this site and elsewhere is strictly mandatory.

  2. Posting about the "comment wars" between the trans and news megathreads is now strongly discouraged inside the news megathread. No shame in it - I also recently made jokes about it - but though they were almost always just jokes, it was unrelated to current events and was beginning to feel more like padding the comment count instead of trying to improve the quality of the thread. If you want to boost comments and engagement here, then post articles and analysis!

The COTW (Chemical of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific chemical every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied chemicals. If you've wanted to talk about the chemical 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 Chemicals of the Week are Estrogen and Testosterone! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants.

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.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]
    ·
    2 months ago

    Chile Hosts Military Exercises of the U.S. Southern Command - Telesur

    Article

    They are authorized by the government of Gabriel Boric and has the organization of the minister of defense, Maya Fernández Allende.

    The UNITAS 2024 multinational naval exercise, organized by the United States Southern Command and the Chilean Navy, began on Monday in the city of Valparaíso, in the Andean country.

    The operations of the year are carried out between 2 and 12 September, with the participation of 24 countries, 17 ships, 2 submarines and 23 aircraft on the coasts of the regions of Coquimbo, Valparaiso and Magallanes.

    Chilean Vice-Admiral Claudio Maldonado, expressed that “we are very happy to be able to participate in this exercise» because «it also allows us to show the capabilities and preparation for planning and conducting operations that the Chilean Navy has”.

    He went further and celebrated that “We also have the great opportunity to share with NATO countries and with countries that possess the latest technologies, so as to be able to share all the procedures and ways of operating that allow us to grow as a Navy and as a country”.

    His counterpart, the Second Commander of the US Fourth Fleet, Rear Admiral Richard S. Lofgren, expressed great confidence that this encounter would be a great success, commenting that it is about “a beautiful experience, it is a real honor to be able to participate in this exercise that has been taking place for 65 years and to work together with allies and friends to continue strengthening our vision of international cooperation”.

    This is the second time in less than a month that the government of Gabriel Boric, whose Defense Minister is Amaya Fernández Allende, has participated in military games with the U.S. in the Pacific Ocean. In the past, he took part in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC 2024) war games, also coordinated by Washington.

    U.S. military activity in the Pacific region is continuing in its particular push against China.

    Although Boric has publicly distanced himself from the Zionist regime in the wake of the brutal aggression that this country is committing in the Gaza Strip, Chile was twinned with Israel in these exercises which were invited by the US.

      • Redcuban1959 [any]
        ·
        2 months ago

        When the 2016 coup in Brazil happened, several former members of the Brazilian Communist Party (the same party that expelled its own creator in the 1980s, iirc one of the first communists leaders in South America) joined the pro-US government, some in high-level positions. It's really sad to see opportunistic people destroy their legacy to sell out to the US.

        • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]
          ·
          2 months ago

          America worshippers sucking up and then being shocked when they’re inevitably betrayed. Will they ever learn? No. They wouldn’t be America worshippers if they were capable of learning

          • VILenin [he/him]
            ·
            2 months ago

            They keep getting discarded like the worthless trash they are the nanosecond their usefulness expires, but the next guy always thinks they’re the one that’s gonna make it.

    • grandepequeno [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      They should quit with this "war game" shit and just call it roleplaying

      • SeekTheDeletion [none/use name]
        ·
        2 months ago

        It’s actually just a pretense to threaten all the countries around it and get into invasion posture to waste their resources

      • Redcuban1959 [any]
        ·
        2 months ago

        It's pretty much roleplay, they even created some weird lore for it, like there are evil nations and good nations with some wacky lore.