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

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.

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

    China is raising its retirement age, another L caused by not embracing immigration.

    • grandepequeno [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      More info from the british state controlled media:

      China will "gradually raise" its retirement age for the first time since the 1950s, as the country confronts an ageing population and a dwindling pension budget.

      The top legislative body on Friday approved proposals to raise the statutory retirement age from 50 to 55 for women in blue-collar jobs, and from 55 to 58 for females in white-collar jobs.

      Men will see an increase from 60 to 63.

      China's current retirement ages are among the lowest in the world.

      According to the plan passed on Friday, the change will set in from 1 January 2025, with the respective retirement ages raised every few months over the next 15 years, said Chinese state media.

      EDIT: Even more info:

      Retiring before the statutory age will not be allowed, state news agency Xinhua reported, although people can delay their retirement by no more than three years.

      Starting 2030, employees will also have to make more contributions to the social security system in order to receive pensions. By 2039, they would have to clock 20 years of contributions to access their pensions.

      The state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in 2019 that the country's main state pension fund will run out of money by 2035 - and that was an estimate before the Covid-19 pandemic, which hit China's economy hard.

      The plan to raise retirement ages and adjust the pension policy was based on "a comprehensive assessment of the average life expectancy, health conditions, the population structure, the level of education and workforce supply in China," Xinhua reported.

      Fuck it here's the article

      • Tom742 [they/them, any]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Yup, not looking like an L when you see the party plan laid out and contrasted with western nations.

        • bbnh69420 [she/her, they/them]
          ·
          2 months ago

          China never looks “bad” in comparison, at some point we have to evaluate them on their own merits

        • grandepequeno [he/him]
          ·
          2 months ago

          It's certainly not as egregious as I thought. Though obviously no one wants to hear something like this

      • Yllych [any]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Do employers pay into pension schemes in China? How much do they have to put in?

      • 3rdWorldCommieCat [none/use name]
        ·
        2 months ago

        Thanks for the info, its definetly not something that anyone would want to happen but not as bad as it seemed. Does anybody have any articles or other places to learn about china's aging demographics and low-birth rate/sex-imbalance stuff that isnt western stuff and doomerism "china is OWNED they're gonna COLLAPSE ANY DAY NOW" and preferably from a communist pov? Though any neutral source would be great cause so far I've only seen western stuff and I never trust those to be transparent and non-propaganda.

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

      I personally think their demographics and population of 1.5 billion + makes it understandable. I don’t live there though so I don’t want to speak for the people

    • plinky [he/him]
      ·
      2 months ago

      TFW you can't even utilize tools of the state to help workers stalin-gun-1

    • iridaniotter [she/her]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Life expectancy has increased ridiculously since it was established. Meanwhile the West is increasing it while life expectancy stagnates or declines.

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

        I seriously doubt China has good protection for mid and late life illnesses. Retirement is more than just a societal expiration date.

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

          China literally just signed a bunch of free trade agreements with the global south

      • bbnh69420 [she/her, they/them]
        ·
        2 months ago

        What were Soviet immigration policies? I ask because rybar posted about needing to make migration more difficult and “rethinking outdated Societ narratives”.

        Post in question, involving an Uzbek national spying for Ukraine

        https://t.me/rybar_in_english/17591

        • starkillerfish [she/her]
          ·
          2 months ago

          yeah rybar is an ultranationalist. the soviet narratives that he wants to rethink are internationalism and multiculturalism

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

        Sure but China should too given their real estate bust, aging population and inroads into Africa. Part of the reason they don't unfortunately is cultural.

        • iridaniotter [she/her]
          ·
          2 months ago

          China's population is really big. Getting enough immigrants to keep the population steady for the next century would be seriously challenging. The real communist solution is to solve the apparent unsustainability of reproduction under late capitalism. (xi-button )

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

            You can't "solve" that without ending birth control. It is just a reality.

            • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
              ·
              2 months ago

              I think she's talking mostly about the South Korean/Japanese birth rate crises caused by various factors amplified by capitalism (and other capitalist countries aren't very far behind them).

              I don't think I agree with quite a strong a verdict on the issue as "can't", though of course we're VERY unlikely to ever return to pre-capitalist birth rates (and thank god for that given that they were prompted by frequent infant death, as well as misogyny). It sounds at least plausible to me that a socialist society could create better conditions for families that would prompt a slight rebound in birth rates without returning to the misogyny of the past. If not, what's the long-term prospects for humanity? There's lots of nightmare scenarios out there that I'd rather avoid.

            • iridaniotter [she/her]
              ·
              2 months ago

              The capitalist mode of reproduction (patriarchy, nuclear family, two genders, biological reproduction, proletarianization) clearly isn't sustainable. A communist mode of reproduction would have vastly increased free time, abolished sex, grow babies outside of human bodies, have communal raising of children, and solved aging. You're thinking way too small.

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

                Not sure if we should turn babies into a product. Also lol why abolish sex if we can just fuck all the time heyoh

                • iridaniotter [she/her]
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  How would children be a product under communism??? No, I mean we can liberate the human body from having to carry and birth babies. This technology would probably be terrible under capitalism and also probably be too expensive.

                  And by sex I am not referring to intercourse but instead to the sex-based class society of patriarchy as well as biological determinism. Both of which are falling apart right now anyway.

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

                    Difference between sex and gender, being transgender is not necessarily the same as gender dysmorphia

        • coolusername@lemmy.ml
          ·
          2 months ago

          No real estate bust. Xi said housing shouldn't be an investment. They're nationalizing the house building sector

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

            The bust triggered govt intervention. (Not sure if it is a full on nationalization, from my understanding it is less than that but I haven't checked in for months

      • Tomorrow_Farewell [any, they/them]
        ·
        2 months ago

        What serious argument can there be against 'embracing' immigration for countries with economies that do not feature the profit motive for its major economic agents (like planned economy)?