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.

  • newmou [he/him]
    ·
    3 months ago

    So I guess it’s safe to say Iran just isn’t going to respond to the assassinations after all. The response being letting Israel slowly crack on its own. Doesn’t seem like the US will let it come apart though. I feel like hearing Kamala say there will be no change in policy should be good enough for them to see that writing on their own wall. Can’t lose sight that Palestinians are dying and being tortured every single day. When will it be too late to meaningfully respond regardless

    • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      in the last few days Iranian officials confirmed that are going to retaliate. I am convinced they are just waiting till after the us navy decides that they aren't going to do anything and fucks off because its fucking expensive keeping all their ships in the area.

      • P1d40n3 [he/him]
        ·
        3 months ago

        I just want to big up this take, as it's my own as well. The US navy is under-manned. It can't keep up their Mediterranean deployment. When America is away. Iran will play...but not playing, but striking down the Zionist entity.

    • RomCom1989 [he/him, any]
      ·
      3 months ago

      I would refrain from making any predictions on what the Axis of Resistance will or won't do in the future

      They have access to a lot more information than we do and are acting in the most efficient way they can

      I don't buy into the doomerism regarding the Iranian response simply because I believe Iran is competent and knows how to accomplish it's goals most effectively according to the greater amount of knowledge it has of the situation on the ground and is probably acting in such a way as to not potentially escalate the situation where it would put the lives of even more people at risk than now

    • Kolibri [she/her]
      ·
      3 months ago

      I think Iran will, when they're ready to, I wouldn't doubt Iran. Here a recent article concerning this to.

      Israel shouldn’t doubt Iran’s resolve to retaliate: Top military official https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/09/05/732691/Iran-military-official-warning-Israel-response-Hamas-leader-assassination

      and some highlights from it

      A ranking Iranian military official says the Israeli regime should not doubt the Islamic Republic’s resolve to retaliate over the regime’s assassination of senior Palestinian resistance leader, Ismail Haniyeh, which took place in Tehran in late July.

      The Iranian Armed Forces’ Deputy Chief of Staff for Coordination, Brigadier General Ali Abdollahi made the remarks during a ceremony in the northwestern Iranian city of Koumeleh on Wednesday.

      “The Zionist regime should not dream that Iran would not respond to this atrocity...because the Islamic Republic has [already] proven its will to deploy all its capacities towards responding to enemies’ violation of its soil and waters,” he said.

      The official quoted remarks made by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei following the assassination, in which the Leader pledged that the Islamic Republic would deliver a “harsh response” to the atrocity.

      “The time of the response, however, will be determined by the Leader and the country’s senior commanders,” Abdollahi noted.

    • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      If Iran can make Israel exist in a state of constant military readiness (at least, as "ready" as any IOF school shooter can be) it will be damaging to their morale and after a while they won't even be particularly "ready" because they've been on high alert for months. Keeping the retaliation hanging over Israel's head also puts pressure on the settlers with constant fear of the Iranian response. The longer they draw it out, the worse it is for Israel.

      edit: check out this lecture @Al_Sham posted https://hexbear.net/comment/5343509

      One of the points that stuck with me is that Israel has to pay reservists the equivalent of their normal salary at their jobs when they're on active duty. Being forced to have a huge number of reservists on active duty is draining their military budget badly.

      • FungiDebord [none/use name]
        ·
        3 months ago

        One of the points that stuck with me is that Israel has to pay reservists the equivalent of their normal salary at their jobs when they're on active duty. Being forced to have a huge number of reservists on active duty is draining their military budget badly.

        Okay but Israelis have an infinite money glitch.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      It still seems pretty baked in that Iran is going to retaliate. It's likely a mixture of wanting Israel to remain on expensive high alert to bleed them both in terms of money, equipment, and morale, and also because it would be extremely irresponsible for Iran to not prepare for Israel and the US escalating even further from their response (they don't want to be caught off-guard, their defence forces have to be ready and they have to prepare their ability to activate a regional war and hit US military bases if Iranian cities start getting bombed, etc), and preparations for outright war often take weeks for countries to execute.

      But I do understand the doomerism here even if I don't indulge in it. It's one thing to patiently wait for a Russian response to some big Ukrainian attack or atrocity on the grounds that attrition has been the guiding strategy of the Russian command for years now, because the "only" people losing their lives in large numbers are soldiers. It's another thing to patiently wait for an Iranian response to an Israeli attack or atrocity - even if you understand that anti-colonial wars are often ones of bleeding dry and outlasting the settler force - knowing that every week that goes by, hundreds and hundreds more Palestinian civilians are bombed or starve or die from diseases.

      • Al_Sham
        ·
        9 days ago

        deleted by creator

    • Beetle_O_Rourke
      ·
      3 months ago

      Reply comes Jan 20th so international news flicks away from inauguration.