Image is of China's ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Sheng, meeting Taliban Prime Minister Hasan Akhund in September 2023.

I know the Rambo title card is a hoax.

The COTW was chosen in the wake of the aborted sequel to the attempted assassination of Trump being performed by a guy who is VERY enthusiastic about Ukraine, to the point of trying to sneak Afghan soldiers into Ukraine by setting up a house in Pakistan to house them and then further transport them. He also apparently offered to send thousands of Afghan soldiers to Haiti to help them combat gang violence. Whomst among us doesn't have the numbers of thousands of Afghan soldiers on speed-dial. Do you reckon there's a group chat?

Anyway, while there is still no official recognition of the Taliban's government by any country, China has taken a different course than the late USSR and the US - forming economic in-roads, rather than trying their own invasion. This has been a big boon for the struggling country, with various mines and oil and agriculture deals helping keep things barely afloat. A total disintegration of the social fabric of Afghanistan is not in the interest of any of the powers that border it - China, Pakistan, and Iran, with Russia not too far away - so an interesting dynamic of helping-without-official-recognition has been established. I wonder who will be the first country to fully recognize them?

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 Afghanistan! 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 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.
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.

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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.

  • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]
    ·
    2 months ago

    This you?

    Does anyone know if Project 2025 has a Russian connection behind it?

    Honestly “Project [number]” is such a Soviet/Russian way of naming a project/plan, and rather uncommon in the American lingo, that I find it hard to believe that the GOP is naming it this way without Russia behind it as a consultant/mastermind or something.

    "Vibes-based" indeed miyazaki-laugh

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

          What are you even talking about? Nobody took their conspiracy theories seriously or bad enough to dunk on, in fact the always get engagement and post insightful comments about other stuff too. It realy feels like you're not reading the room here. They're not a malicious or dishonest poster, at least not that I can tell.

          Stop acting as if you're some authority here trying to clean shit, this is the lamest internet trope to date, that one guy that thinks they're representing others with authority.

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

            i don't like users here repeating 2016 era russiagate shower thoughts. I'll keep mocking them until the day I die. This user is shipwreck and often posts bait lib comments in extremely serious tone of voice.

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

              You have a weird definition of bait then, bait is not when you disagree with shit. I don't think they were correct either, I've contested their posts many times btw I know the rhetoric.

              But as I said, you're being hostile towards someone that was not even dishonest and often contributes in other areas.

              This whole chain points out the amount of cope people post here approaches its own conspiracy theory level. "Iran will retaliate at any day now" is literally becoming a meme. But its the random project whatever post from 3 months ago that is relevant?

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

                https://hexbear.net/comment/5398810

                This is bait. Everyone in the entire thread either is clowning on them or recognizes it as bait. Either it's incoherent lib gibberish or it's purposeful trolling, either way, why is this type of comment tolerated? 3 months ago? This was yesterday. They keep doing this, keep making comments like this, and did it repeatedly on shipwreck. Hundreds of these types of stupid ass liberal takes mixed in with their other comments.

                I don't think they should be banned or anything, but I do think all of their lib showerthought bait comments should be removed. In addition, I don't really value their input on moderation questions as they post a lot of shit I believe shouldn't be here.

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

                  I don't think they should be banned or anything, but I do think all of their lib showerthought bait comments should be removed. In addition, I don't really value their input on moderation questions as they post a lot of shit I believe shouldn't be here.

                  I literaly told you I'm familiar with them and I literaly often reply to them too. Stop trying to create a witch hunt, you already made your point, I disagree.

                  I look at your comment history now and its not even the first time you do this. Chill out dude. You're developing a patter of trying to witch hunt established users over petty shit.

                  So they have post cringe takes once in a while, who cares? I literaly already told you most people know this. I know this since I reply to them often. I'd take one crazy L in a while, so what, report for a mod and move on.

                  You're not in the position to tell others to "go to reddit" and your comment history is questionable.

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

                    You're developing a patter of trying to witch hunt established users over petty shit.

                    Criticism is not witch hunting, and chauvinism and defeatism are not petty shit.

                    I come here to read insight from people who are smarter than me on the current status of the anti-imperialist struggle. Not read the dooming of ultras and libs who have less understanding than me, and the gloating of social imperialists. I would prefer the latter be removed from top level comments.