Thank you to @carpoftruth@hexbear.net for covering my position as Supreme Dictator of the Goddamn News while I was moving and getting set up in my new home in a top secret Kremlin-funded bunker five hundred feet below the ground. Our regularly scheduled programming returns this week.
On October 9th, Daniel Chapo won the Mozambique general election with about 70% of the vote. Chapo is the head of FRELIMO, the Marxist-Leninist party of Mozambique's liberation, which fought an internal anti-communist resistance called RENAMO which was backed by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa; Frelimo won in 1975. However, as the USSR fell, Frelimo began to allow elections inside Mozambique, and has ruled the country with significant majorities in each election ever since.
The main opposition party inside Mozambique is Podemos, which is led by Venancio Mondlane, a former member of Renamo and trained inside the USA. He alleges that his polling figures predicted a majority win for him, not Frelimo, and has accused Chapo of electoral fraud. There have been the usual slogans about how they yearn for freedom. The EU, of course, "witnessed irregularities." As @WilsonWilson@hexbear.net has pointed out, Mozambique has massive undeveloped gas fields and is outsourcing the development process to France, Norway, the UK, and the USA, while mysterious Islamist groups have popped up to cause chaos in the exact regions which have the gas, slowing the process of actually developing those gas fields. Overall, it appears to be a cookie-cutter colour revolution attempt by the imperial core designed to install a comprador for cheaper resources. Its proximity to BRICS+ member South Africa may also be significant, noting the colour revolution in Bangladesh earlier this year exerting influence near India and China.
Protestors have been battling against the police and government since late October, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries as well as massive disruption, as the government has intermittently blocked access to the internet and social media. As of today, calm appears to be returning, with border crossings beginning to reopen.
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.
Some short news stories from Denmark:
For-profit train operator test driving trains from the 1970's amidst parts shortage
Read more...
Private rail operator GoCollective is test driving trains built in 1978 which might be put in service on the Svendborg branch line on the island of Funen. The operator would rather use new bazinga battery-driven trains but according to them the vintage trains might be the only rolling stock available.
Commuters have experienced frequent delays, cancellations and overcrowded trains for years and the Liberal Party-controlled ministry of transportation recently ruled GoCollective's service to be "unsatisfactory". The operator blames the irregularities on the line's trainsets being out of service for repairs for longer time than expected. A shortage of steel, wheels and gears caused in part by the Ukraine war has made it hard to source parts for the trainsets. The situation is made worse by the line experiencing more collisions with trees than expected, increasing the bed for repairs.
The Svendborg line was opened in 1876 as a regional railway. In 1949 it was taken over by the state railways. In 2020 service on the line was handed over to the multinational for-profit operator Arriva. The Danish subsidiary of Arriva was taken over by Deutsche Bahn in 2023 and rebranded to GoCollective.
No more royal marketing
Read more...
Until now Denmark's monarchy has had s practice of granting certain businesses the status of "purveyors to the royal Danish court", allowing them to use the royal crown in labelling and marketing. The status used to indicate that the business was an actual supplier to the monarchy but has since developed into a form of honorary award given respectable and established businesses. Frederik Glücksburg, who became king following a bloodless transfer of power in January, has now decided to end the practice completely giving the reason that it no longer reflects any actual business relationship to the monarchy. Since gaining power mr. Glücksburg has faced calls to exclude unethical businesses, such as alcohol producers, from the scheme and the decision to abandon it complete can be seen as the monarchy insulating reducing the potential risk of having its reputation damaged by the actions of the businesses.
The brewery corporation Carlsberg will now apply the National Archives for permission to continue using the royal crown in its marketing, citing "historic reasons".
Supermarket chains to sell sex toys
Read more...
Retail corporation Salling Group has decided to put sex toys on the shelves of two supermarket chains as they expect them to be in demand by customers. Public attitudes to sex toys has shifted and buying them no longer carries the same stigma it used to.
The retailer promises that the new products will be packaged tastefully and placed on top shelves away from the eyes of children.
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I'm just going to voice my appreciation for these regional posts you do here.
I often hope to emulate this from my country, but typically run out of spoons (also avoiding national news due to it triggering me these days).
We need
correspondants for all the places in the world, this is the best way to read news.
my experience with danish trains was that they weren't great but the stations were conveniently located
In general, our trains are a relic of a more civilized age. If you are within the greater copenhagen area, the train services are generally really good and convenient. If you are outside of greater copenhagen, then the trainservices become more spotty, with frequent delays and cancellations. Also most of the trains are fucking old with no aircondition or amenities (outside of a bathroom that sometimes work).
The state railway service likes to brag about the fact that local trains have been electrified since 1934, which is also correct, but massively misleading, as the Danish government was perenially bankrupt in the 1960s and 1970s, so we just never got around to upgrading our electric trains to diesel.
Some Targets in the US have a small selection of sex toys for sale. I know it's pissed some chuds off, which is fun
Wild. The us has had sex toys in grocery stores for years now, at least in some regions. Thought the danes would be ahead of us on this.
They have some at my local Walmart, pretty normal here
Here to tell you that a good portion of Amtrak's rolling stock is from the 70s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amfleet