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.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]
    ·
    2 个月前

    Saudi Arabia: Crown Suspends All Relations with Israel Until it Recognizes Palestine - Telesur

    Article

    The Crown Prince stated that «the Kingdom will not stop its tireless work towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital».

    Saudi Arabian heir to the throne, Muhammad bin Salman, strongly condemned on Wednesday the war crimes of the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people and said his country would not recognize Israel without a Palestinian state.

    During a speech to the members of the Shura Consultative Council, which he delivered on behalf of King Salman, the Crown Prince stated that «the Kingdom will not stop its tireless work towards the creation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital».

    He then stated that without this status his country «will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel».

    He rejected «the crimes of the Israeli occupation authority against the Palestinian people, ignoring international humanitarian law in a new and painful chapter of their suffering».

    Saudi Crown Prince and PM Mohammed bin Salman stated that normalization of relations with Israel is impossible without an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital

    He also emphasized the commitment of the Saudi authorities to a good-neighbourly policy, which is why he aims to improve regional and international security through diplomatic solutions to crises in countries such as Yemen, Sudan, Libya and others.

    On behalf of the Palestinian people and their leaders, the President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, welcomed bin Salman’s speech and the firm positions of Saudi Arabia at all levels in support of the Palestinian people and their just cause.

    He also highlighted the efforts made by Riyadh to stop the ongoing aggression against Gaza and the West Bank, their lands and holy places, and to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

    • CleverOleg [he/him]
      ·
      2 个月前

      It’s worth point out that KSA recognizing Israel was a VERY big deal right up to Oct 7th. I don’t recall if it was an explicit or implicit reason for Oct 7th, but it was a major contributor regardless. This is a significant W for the Resistance.

      • Fishroot [none/use name]
        ·
        2 个月前

        kSA is very interested with normalization. One of the reason is Israel spyware. That’s how they got Khashoggi with Pegasus. After the pagers attack, i don’t think it is good idea to buy products from someone with zero business ethics and potentially put your country at risk unless you have the intelligence of a 3rd generation fail-son monarch

        • Redcuban1959 [any]
          ·
          2 个月前

          zero business ethics

          They also sold this spyware to Bolsonaro because they supported him. Then, when Lula won and asked for information about Bolsonaro and his use of this spyware, they gave Lula all the information he wanted because Bolsonaro was no longer valuable to them.

    • Fishroot [none/use name]
      ·
      2 个月前

      The kingdom running a deficit for the first time and limiting freedom of expression probably make him realize that he has to do the bare minimum in order to not get jacobin’ed by the slaver middle class.