Image is sourced from this article.
It takes very little effort to find an article from Western state propaganda decrying Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas as authoritarian and rife with human rights abuses. This is the natural reaction the US has to any successful liberation movement. This fairly long report from Jason Cohen, a socialist who travelled to Nicaragua one week ago, should quell any suspicions.
He describes a country with high political consciousness among the masses, who are working to construct critical infrastructure for the country and their communities. There is a virtual education system that is free across the entire nation, which serves the dual goal of democratizing education and ensuring that those in rural areas or without much free time for university can still achieve degrees and a quality education; and these classes cover technical skills in the production of infrastructure and agriculture, but also political and ideological education in order to counter the fascist propaganda produced by imperialist nations abroad.
While Nicaragua is deeply invested in its nationality and national figures who led to their socialist revolution, such as Sandino, they are also immensely proud of their indigneous history, recognizing it as also part of their anti-colonial history which continues to the present day. Additionally, they honour the struggles of other nations on the continent, such as the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, as well as Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. Countries around the world are also celebrated and admired, such as Burkina Faso; during the Reagan administration, Nicaragua and Burkina Faso were comrades in arms, and now Traore is continuing the legacy of Sankara's anti-imperialism in the present. Perhaps most relevant today is their dedication towards Palestine, involving the creation of the Parque Palestina (shown in the post image), in which the Palestinian flag flies alongside the flag of Nicaragua. In July, Leila Khaled of the PFLP gave a speech in Nicaragua, in which the solidarity of the two nations was highlighted.
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 Nicaragua! 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.
I was listening to CII Radio and Salaamedia on Monday. A guest speaker on the live radio mentioned the massacres are quite literally done just for fun (their words, not mine) and there has not been any clear objective than just wanton extermination. The rhetoric has also become much more bloodthirsty as well as self-sustaining, with the violence itself a catalyst. It was already bad enough a decade ago, but now it's much more directly hostile and slowly becoming more materially violent. Salaamedia even noted that in response to a journalist who escaped to South Africa and gave an interview on Newzroom Afrika, pro-"israeli" individuals were already screaming for her death because hostages. Even preschool aged children who were evacuated to South Africa for ICU are the targets of this violent sentiment.
It was even noted that if the South African government does not take any meaningful action against "israel", the Apartheid violence could slowly become normalized yet again. There is also the possibility of terrorism or targeted attacks against South African heads of state, and though while marginal at the moment, the chance isn't zero. Could there be an upsurge of anti-South African sentiment if say, the Diaper forces assault Ramallah, storm the South African embassy and destroy the Nelson Mandela Square to "send a message"?
The ICC/ICJ is still "on the fence" whether trapping over 2 million people into an area only slightly larger than municipal Johannesburg, starving them, destroying all infrastructure and services, further squeezing them into a critical mass of density, etc. constitutes a genocide. Likely because South Africa already questions the courts' legitimacy almost a decade ago and they're afraid to let it slip in their own words.
("Municipal Johannesburg" referring to the city and it's surrounding large/dense neighbourhoods, disregarding cities such as Soweto and Ekurhuleni that comprise the megacity as a whole. The municipality is almost the size of the Gaza Strip, however 6 million people live in it.)
I have always wondered when the Israeli generals order a civilian massacre - like, not even one where you could smirkingly pretend, if you were a Zionist, that it had a military goal, literally just bombing tents and schools - whether they actually have some kind of deranged "objective" or broader plan in mind or if it's literally just a dude who got pissed off that Hamas smoked one of their friends with a sniper rifle and decides that a hundred infants need to die today.
I guess going to the memoirs/testimonies of Nazi generals and other such fascists might provide an answer but reading through those is a real trial, I imagine. I talked about this earlier in the megathread, about how these sorts of atrocities haven't historically made the opposing force back down (or, at least not for very long) and instead further galvanise and ensure the destruction of the colonizers, but from the colonizers' point of view, I don't know if a) they don't know this and are walking into the same trap over and over again throughout the centuries, or b) they do know this but aren't acting with any sort of logic or plan in mind, they're just angry, panicking fascists that hope that enough murder will eventually work, and that your average Zionist general thinks that the problem with the Nazis is that they didn't kill their ethnic minorities fast or brutally enough, but they've got it all figured out and it'll work this time.
I recently watched an interview with someone who said that Israel long ago lost any sense of strategic or tactical action, when they assassinate someone from Hamas or shell Lebanon it's not to further any goal or defeat their enemies. They are purely acting out of spite, retribution, and making themselves feel better, and this has been the status quo in IDF leadership long before October 7th. I'm wracking my brain but I can't remember who said it, maybe Ali Abunimah.
Reactionaries are reactionaries. They no longer operate out of any sense of long-term, medium-term, or even short-term planning. Everything is them reacting and lashing out to whatever bullshit they're currently feeling.
https://truthout.org/articles/israel-urges-us-congress-to-press-south-africa-to-drop-genocide-case-at-icj/