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
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.
The "Uncommitted Movement" issued a statement today that they:
With "friends" like these...
Were not endorsing Kamala but you should deffinitly vote and not for anybody other than Kamala.
If the rules you follow have led you to this... lol
Really desperate to not admit tot themselves they do t actually stand for anything.
Maybe they just don't know what an endorsement actually is. This is seriously the kind of shit some ignorant
of a 
liberal would try to gotcha you with.
Urge their supporters to vote in the Presidential election
Urge their supporters not to vote for Trump or any third-party/independent candidates for president.
Pick a lane!
They aren't endorsing Kamala though!
Obviously, they're saying we should write-in Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. #itsnotjoevertilitsjoever
Feels like a committee Frankenstein position
They could've just said 'please don't vote Trump' and let people vote as they please for anyone else. Just 5head
language.
We don't endorse A, but you must vote for someone, and someone cannot be B or anyone except A.
Sounds like an endorsement if you ask me.
So not so different than Hassan or any left influencers
Is Hassan saying don’t vote third party?
Kind of, he said he never takes any third parties seriously he was explicitly talking about the greens (calling them grifters because they don’t do anything locally)
He has said he respects PSL for doing on the ground organizing and stuff, independent of the electoral voting side which he does think is kind of pointless ultimately.
At least 150 Greens hold elected office in 20 states across the United States as of July 1, 2024
He should endorse PSL, maybe a chunk of his audience would listen.
I don’t see him platforming PSL or any PSL adjacent people, but he did an interview with Ro Khanna at the DNC.
I think his audience is taking Hassan as entertainment. Probably a way to feel better as they nose pinch themselves into voting for democrats.
Inb4 the radicalization pipeline argument, he probably plays a small role within a niche community, the majority of the population is indifferent or anti-israel already and it is a going to increase in the near future, but this is not good enough, i don’t really care about how anti colonialism is ingrained in the future generations when Israel complete their final solution. I want politicians to pass their litmus test now.
I don’t think he is going to either, pissing off the more liberal parts of audience would cost him money. It would be nice though, even if it did nothing.
People should really look at people on the internet as what they are: entertainers. They should be criticized constructively and not defending as parasocial mindsets kicks in.
He basically says "Don't vote Trump, Do vote down ballot, Do whatever you want on the top of the ticket, but don't expect me to take third parties seriously."