Image is of one of the six salvos of the Oreshnik missile striking Ukraine.
The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that appears to split into six groups of six submunitions as it strikes its target, giving it the appearance of a hazel flower. It can travel at ten times the speed of sound, and cannot be intercepted by any known Western air defense system, and thus Russia can strike and conventionally destroy any target anywhere in Europe within 20 minutes. Two weeks ago, Russia used the Oreshnik to strike the Yuzhmash factory in Ukraine, particularly its underground facilities, in which ballistic missiles are produced.
Despite the destruction caused by the missile, and its demonstration of Russian missile supremacy over the imperial core, various warmongering Western countries have advocated for further reprisals against Russia, with Ukraine authorized by the US to continue strikes. Additionally, the recent upsurge of the fighting in Syria is no doubt connected to trying to stretch Russia thin, as well as attempting to isolate Hezbollah and Palestine from Iran; how successful this will have ended up being will depend on the outcome of the Russia and Syrian counteroffensive. Looking at recent military history, it will take many months for the Russians and Syrians to retake a city that was lost in about 48 hours.
Even in the worst case scenario for Hezbollah, it's notable that Ansarallah has had major success despite being physically cut off from the rest of the Resistance and under a blockade, and it has defeated the US Navy in its attempts to open up the strait. Israel has confirmed now that their army cannot even make significant territorial gains versus a post-Nasrallah, post-pager terrorist attack Hezbollah holding back its missile strike capabilities. In 2006, it also could not defeat a much less well-armed Hezbollah and was forced to retreat from Lebanon.
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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.
DPP says it does not support martial law after furor over post
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) today said it does not support martial law, after its caucus’ social media post last night comparing the situation in Taiwan’s legislature to South Korea stirred controversy.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol late last night announced martial law, but rescinded the order after the National Assembly voted unanimously to reject his declaration.
After the order was made, the DPP caucus posted on Threads saying that the party supported Yoon’s fight against the North Korean threat. Democratic Progressive Party caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu, left, speaks at a news conference in Taipei today.
"The South Korean parliament has been manipulated by North Korean forces," said the post by "lydppcaucus," an account run by the party's caucus.
"South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol announced emergency martial law nationwide to protect the free constitutional system," the post said. "Have no doubt, we who are Team Taiwan are every second and every minute opposing global dark and evil forces encroaching on [Taiwan].”
The post also suggested that opposition parties had repeatedly obstructed national security proposals, "unconstitutionally expanded" their powers and cut the defense budget, among other claims.
This post was deleted after 20 minutes, after which the DPP said in another post that it was an attempt to “share international information.”
Remarks at a UN Security Council Briefing on Syria
Ambassador Robert Wood
I shall now make a statement in my capacity as the representative of the United States.
Let me first thank Special Envoy Pedersen and Mr. Salah for your briefings. I wish to especially thank Mr. Salah, for his and the White Helmets’ efforts to bring to the attention of the world, the repeated use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime against its own people. It is essential that you are here today.
At the same time, the recent rebel offensive – which the United States had nothing to do with – is led by a group, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, otherwise known as HTS, that is a U.S. and UN designated terrorist organization. We obviously have concerns about this group.
We will continue to fully defend and protect U.S. personnel and U.S. military positions, which remain essential to ensuring that ISIS can never again resurge in Syria.
This is sick, real early RATM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ8YAv2rcQU check out Tom Morelos's CCCP hat
- Show
Also i lost the link but apparently an official account of the DDP of taiwan congratulated the ROK president for the coup and said taiwan should do the same, they deleted after it failed
- Show
Taiwan "liberals" supporting the right wing incel President.
Mercouris is saying that Wagner has been sent to Syria under Russian military supervision to help stabilize the situation there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcQ7rYMiDzI
He talks about information coming to light that militant cells had apparently been infiltrating Aleppo for months in preparation for this attack, which explains why it took the Syrian government by surprise.
Absolutely pissing myself laughing. This propaganda telegram I follow which I've long believed has some feds in it has a moderator who has been telling people he's Swiss for years now. Constantly posts racist, hateful and homophobic shit in a bid to get me to quit the group because they don't like my presence there constantly undercutting stuff.
Anyway dude posted a voice message to the chat (quite common on telegram) without thinking about it and the dude has a yank accent so now I call him the fed.
This isn't news per se but as it's one of the fashy places I get shit from it's tangentially related
Namibia elects Nandi-Ndaitwah as country’s first woman president
But
Her win cements her governing South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) party’s 34-year hold on power since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 – a contested outcome.
Opposition parties have rejected the results after the election was marred by technical problems, including shortages of ballot papers and other issues, causing election officials to extend voting until Saturday. Long queues meant that some voters gave up on the first day of voting after waiting for up to 12 hours.
The opposition parties say the extension was illegal and have pledged to challenge the results in court.
The candidate for the main opposition Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), Panduleni Itula, trailed Nandi-Ndaitwah with 25.5 percent of the vote, according to the commission.
“The rule of law has been grossly violated and we cannot call these elections by any means or measure as free, fair and legitimate,” Itula said on Saturday.
While in power for decades, SWAPO has disenchanted young voters due to high youth unemployment rates and enduring inequalities.
IPC is neoliberal, look at their manifesto, this was mentioned before anything related to welfare where they posture as socdem.
In addition to reducing the number of Ministries we will merge or close some of the thirty 30, parasitic organisations living off Government funds.
Privatization
This goofy ROK nonsense is a just a big psyop to distract us from Syria, the current focus of Yankee imperialism, how's the Lion doing?
Well it seems like the SAA has managed to reorganize and prevent further advances into Hama City, but HTS are staging for an assault from the northern suburbs and publicly warning residents of such. HTS still capturing villages in Salamiyah District east of Hama but SAA still holding on to the main road just about 9km south from the new frontline. Seems like a sensible place to make a stand if the SAA has finally gotten its shit together after the shock has worn off. Also, all those rumors about coups were misinformation of course.
Aleppo is a total defeat, SDF accepted an offer from HTS to withdraw from the city, new civil administration being established already. I shutter thinking of the scores of captured equipment surely now in the hands of the bandits, and likely years of counterinsurgency that it will take to uproot them from the area.
NATO and the Zionist entity are conducting bombardments, hitting "iran-backed" government militias in Deir Ez-Zor (yet again) and assassinating Hezbollah's liaison with the SAA in Damascus today. Likely to try to distrupt arms deliveries. Turkey, a thousand curses upon them, is bombing SDF targets with air and artillery and sending their puppet army the SNA to attack the SDF in the north, probably aiming for Manbij.
The Great Satan went to the UN to say they are "happy with the treatment of people in Aleppo" by HTS, which is labeled by the Great Satan as a designated terrorist organization and AQ affiliate, so you know their hands are all over this offensive. Russian aviation must have also been effective the past few days since the Great Satan brought some White Helmet guy to whine about barrel bombs and destruction of hospitals. Old shit and a complete farce considering what has been sanctioned by them in in Gaza. Russia accuses US and allies, including Ukraine specifically, of arming HTS fighters.
Finally, another huge wave of internally displaced people in the wake of this offensive. The barbarism continues.
Some Syria news for today.
Big news: Iran is willing to deploy troops to Syria if Damascus requests them: https://thecradle.co/articles/iran-ready-to-consider-sending-troops-to-syria-at-damascuss-request-fm
Washington’s Kurdish-dominated “SDF” puppets attempted attacking seven northern Deir ez-Zor province settlements. The US imperialists tried aiding the “SDF” with artillery fire from their illegal occupation base near the Conoco oil field. The Syrian army and local militias repelled the attacks: https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-army-repels-attack-by-us-proxy-militias-in-deir-ezzor
Syrian forces eliminated another 200 Western-backed terrorists and shot down over 20 drones: https://tass.com/world/1881521
A Syrian airstrike destroyed another al-Queda command post: https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/12/03/738433/Syrian-forces-destroy-takfiri-terrorist-operation-room
Iraqi popular mobilization units have entered Syria to help fight off the Western proxies: https://odysee.com/@Support4Z:b/%F0%9F%93%BD%EF%B8%8F-A-%F0%9F%87%AC%F0%9F%87%A7-%F0%9F%87%AB%F0%9F%87%B7,--Battle-ready-Iraqi-soldiers-have-entered-Syria!!:4
US Launches missile strike on Syria (Al-Jazeera)
article text
Published On 3 Dec 20243 Dec 2024
Washington, DC – The Pentagon has confirmed that the United States carried out a strike against military assets in eastern Syria after a rocket attack near one of its bases.
Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday that the US military struck weapons systems — including rocket launchers and a tank — that “presented a clear and imminent threat” to its forces in the area.
The US strike comes as violence escalates across the war-torn country. Over the last week, armed opposition groups carried out a blistering offensive in northwest Syria against the government forces led by President Bashar al-Assad, ushering in a new stage of the country’s long-running civil war.
The offensive has raised questions about how the US might respond and whether it could become entangled in the conflict, given its significant military presence in Syria.
Ryder said on Tuesday that the attack was in response to a rocket launch that fell “in the vicinity” of Military Support Site (MSS) Euphrates, a US base in eastern Syria.
He added that it is not clear who was operating the weapons, but Iran-backed groups and Syrian government forces are known to be in the area.
The Pentagon spokesperson stressed that the action is “not linked to any broader activities in northwest Syria by other groups”.
But on Tuesday, Damascus accused the US of providing air support for the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which pushed to advance against government-controlled villages east of the Euphrates River, near the city of Deir ez-Zor.
The SDF has received US support for years under the stated aim of fighting ISIL (ISIS).
Syrian state-run Alikhbaria TV reported on Tuesday that clashes were taking place between SDF and government forces near the village of Tabiyet Jazira “with the intervention of US occupation jets that are targeting the frontlines in the area”.
The SDF had claimed earlier in the day that it took control of seven villages east of the Euphrates due to the “serious threat related to the imminent movement of large ISIS terrorist cells”.
“The deployment of our forces to these villages is in response to the urgent pleas and appeals of the local populace, following the increasing potential risks that ISIS will exploit the events in the west of the country,” the SDF’s Deir ez-Zor Military Council said in a statement.
But the Syrian government said the villages remain under its control.
Farther west, government troops have been battling rebels trying to advance towards the central city of Hama as the front lines of the war, which had gone mostly dormant over the past four years, see major shifts.
Rebel groups, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which had been confined to the northwestern Idlib province, launched their offensive last week, taking control of Aleppo and heading south towards Hama.
The country had experienced relative calm since 2020 with the government, rebel groups and SDF largely remaining within their unofficial territories.
But the opposition appears to have struck at an opportune moment when President al-Assad’s main military backers — Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah — are focusing on their own conflicts elsewhere.
The US, which calls Assad a “brutal dictator”, has denied any involvement in the rebels’ offensive, highlighting that Washington considers HTS to be a “terrorist” group.
HTS is a reiteration of al-Nusra Front, which operated as al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria early in the war.
According to the Pentagon, Washington has 900 troops in Syria and a deep alliance with the SDF, one of the major parties to the conflict.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon’s Ryder declined to answer questions about the SDF’s operations in the Deir ez-Zor area.
“Our focus has been on working with the SDF as it relates to countering ISIS, and that continues to be our focus,” he said.
Daniel Zamora: "Coups in the era of hyperpolitics: improvised, chaotic and with no future. The yellow vests movement but for elites."
South Korea’s largest union confederation says members will strike until Yoon resigns (CNN)
South Korea’s largest union confederation said its members will go on an indefinite general strike until President Yoon Suk Yeol resigns following his attempt to impose martial law.
“We will fight alongside the people, leading the way for the immediate resignation of Yoon Suk Yeol,” the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) said, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
“KCTU members will stop working according to the strike guidelines, call for the resignation of Yoon Suk Yeol for treason, and conduct nationwide emergency actions for social reform and the realization of popular sovereignty,” the union added.
The KCTU boasts 1.2 million members.
The union confederation said members will gather at Gwanghwamun Square this morning. The huge square in central Seoul which has long been the location for political protests.
