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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.
Seriously what’s going on between Brazil and China?
On Dec 23rd, 2024, Brazilian authorities halted the construction of BYD factory after Chinese construction workers were found living in “slavery-like” conditions. This would have been the first BYD factory outside Asia and a significant expansion into Latin America. On Dec 27th, Brazil had stopped issuing temporary work visa to BYD, with the factory merely three months away from completing its construction.
Very conveniently, on the same day, China launched an investigation into its beef import, citing that oversupply has caused a squeeze on its domestic price.
This is clearly pointed towards Brazil. Is this China sending a warning shot to Brazil that they better not interfere with the BYD incident? Will Brazil fold to China’s pressure? Seriously, what’s going on? I hope they don’t start fighting or something.
I can assure you despite the mainstream media reporting this story is definitely like 99% true.
First a key point to understand. BYD is not building the factory on its own, the project was outsourced to a Chinese contractor Jinjiang. The key here is BYD and Chinese defense want to argue on BYD's behalf, but under Brazilian law both parties are responsible, not just the contractor, i.e yes BYD is responsible(negligent) for allowing their contractor to break Brazilian labour law.
This must be understood because it is only an attack on BYD if you completely ignore Brazilian law, that sounds like absolute condescension from the BYD defense side. Maybe make sure your contractors are not breaking the law is common sense. I should note Brazil got a structural problem with migrant labour and attempts to circunvent local labour law by giving double standards. In this story only the Chinese workers are mistreated exactly as a cost-cutting strategy.
Second this is the original Brazilian media investigative reporting. Denúncia: operários chineses estariam sofrendo agressões em fábrica da BYD na Bahia This was at first an allegation of physical abuse by independent journalists. this prompted the Brazilian authorities to launch the investigation.
This was the first opportunity for Jingjiang/BYD to take notice and respond.
I have to note here that BYD can go fuck themselves with this phrasing, it is absolutely horrible to see this same attitude which usualy comes from westerners "yes let me remind you we put a lot of money into it" as if we're animals begging for scraps at a table. More importantly it shows they're not cooperative as you can see, in many instances they did not even address the allegations provided.
Also BTW as a reminder 10 years should be put into context that Dilma suffered the coup in 2016. Basicaly 6 out of those 10 years were under the extreme right wing Temer/Bolsonaro governments that severely destroyed our labour rights, specialy the outsourcing reform etc. In that regard the Lula government did absolutely nothing to improve the situation btw.
This is not a bragging moment is what I mean. Jesus leave it for the Chinese to brag about working under a right wing government lol, anyway.
So at first they deny and deflect with a condescending tone and then finaly actualy despite the BS, the capitalist screeching they actualy admitted they were at fault and asked their contractor to fix it.
Except they didn't and then you saw the shameless abhorrent attempt to intimidate the workers with that recent PR video.
Later more evidence came out including reports of injuries at the working site. This should not be taken lightly, the local Union is involved too, though even if you give them minimum legitimacy, it means there are witnesses and this is not fake news or whatever US plotting.
BYD confirmed the accidents took place and they were treated on site. I personaly don't think this is appropriate, certainly not an amputation shouldn't be taken lightly as a mere simple working accident. There is no defense for this kind of coincidence only the fact many others may have happened that we don't know about.
BYD/Jiang admitted the workers were treated on-site. I'm sure you're aware this is wholy inadequate to put it mildly when these are not special conditions e.g a oil rig in the ocean or some base in antartica. Its a city in Brazil with adequate public and private health options.
Then finaly as is ample photos and available video evidence. They had absolutely appaling hygiene standards, workers were eating from buckets, the kitchen looks like an open market with absolutely no health inspection standards i.e this is already illegal by Anvisa standards to prepare food in such places.. Also in the same video you can see their beds are of low quality, some lack even a mattress which is something even poor families in the favelas have access to. Its inexcusable.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
IIrc, the Ford Motorcompany left Brazil during Bolsonaro's government because Bolsonaro was fucking moron. I think Ford thought that Lula da Silva would sell back the empty buildings and factories that Ford left, back to Ford or Tesla. That didn't happen, Lula da Silva sold them to BYD and also gave China basically all the lithium mining rights in Brazil (probably because Elon Musk, out of fucking nowhere, decided to attack Lula da Silva and the Brazilian Supreme Court, and because Lula's government had closer relations with the Chinese government than with Biden).
I think this is pressure from the United States, Ford and Tesla, who have already pressured Brazil in the past to increase taxes on Chinese imports. And Brazil's far-right congress is happy to do what the US wants because it hates Lula and China. I think the BYD workers insisted that they were not in conditions of “slavery”.
Oh no, willingly working an overseas contract job for pay. Sounds like slavery.
Also it's not uncommon for labor armies (and actual armies) that come from overseas to live in meager conditions for a while. They usually get compensated fairly for this and it makes sense to use temporary housing for a temporary workforce.
Be very careful about employing this kind of rhetoric. For instance, South Asians also willingly take contracts to work overseas in Saudi Arabia or the UAE, but we wouldn't write off their abuse and bondage by reframing it as their responsibility.
This is crazy to be so in support of China to start not taking the side of the workers and the proletariat, and excusing exploitation.
Disclaimer, I have not looked into this news deeply, but if the workers were in slave-like conditions, stopping the construction and forcing the conditions to improve is 100% the right move.
I really wish for China to continue improving workers rights, this is fundamental for a socialist state and if they don't, I hope other countries won't let them get away with this.
P.S.: Fuck the meat industry
It seems to me that the vast majority of immigration law has been written by capitalists, for capitalists. This is a problem globally, and needs to be addressed by any socialist society.
I totally agree, just meant that if this is specifically a political play against China, then using that charge weakens it.
If the charges are legitimate and there is a problem with the laborers being exploited or made to work in slave like conditions, then obviously it needs to be addressed and fixed by all involved parties.
Yeah I think this kind of condition is quite common in China (factory work, for example) but Brazil may have a different sets of standards for defining what ‘slavery-like conditions’ mean. I haven’t looked into the details so I’m not sure who’s in the right here, but I do agree that working conditions in China need to be improved (it’s still far behind Western standards in many respects).
FWIW, here's the page from the State Prosecutor for Labor with, presumably, the lion's share of the accusations. A simple translate to english from portuguese should suffice:
spoiler
Task force rescues workers and prohibits BYD construction in Camaçari
The rescue of 163 workers for being in slave-like conditions and the closure of accommodation and sections of the construction site of the plant where the car manufacturer Build Your Dreams (BYD) is installing a factory in the municipality of Camaçari, in the metropolitan region of Salvador was notified this Monday morning (23/12) to the company and the Jinjiang Group, one of the contractors hired to carry out the work.
Some of those rescued remain in accommodation, while another group is already in a hotel, but they will not be able to work and will have their employment contracts terminated.
The embargoed accommodation and construction sites will also remain without activities until complete regularization with the bodies that make up the task force. The task force responsible for inspections and the development of this action is made up of the Public Ministry of Labor (MPT), the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE), the Federal Public Defender's Office (DPU) and the Federal Highway Police (PRF), in addition to the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) and the Federal Police (PF).
A joint virtual hearing of the MPT and MTE was scheduled for the 26th in the afternoon so that BYD and Jinjang can present the necessary measures to guarantee the minimum accommodation conditions and also for the conditions for the general regularization of what has already been negotiated to be negotiated. detected. The inspection, however, will still continue with the analysis of requested documents and the need for new on-site inspections cannot be ruled out.
During the series of inspections, which began in mid-November and will continue in the coming days, 163 workers were identified in conditions similar to slavery at the outsourcing company Jinjang, a service provider for BYD. These workers were distributed across four main accommodations in the municipality of Camaçari. A fifth accommodation, intended for workers with administrative functions, was also inspected, but, despite some irregularities being identified, there was no rescue of workers.
The conditions found in the accommodation revealed an alarming picture of precariousness and degradation. In the first accommodation, the workers slept in beds without mattresses, they did not have lockers for their personal belongings, which were mixed with food materials. The health situation was especially critical, with only one bathroom for every 31 workers, forcing them to wake up at 4am to form a queue and be able to get ready to leave for work at 5:30am.
The second accommodation, intended mainly for welders, presented similarly precarious conditions. Although there was a material on the beds, these were in fact just 3cm thick coverings, insufficient to provide minimum conditions of use, with some beds not even having this covering. All accommodation shared serious infrastructure and hygiene problems. The bathrooms, in addition to being insufficient, were not separated by sex, did not have adequate toilet seats and presented precarious hygiene conditions. The lack of an appropriate place to wash clothes led workers to use their own bathrooms for this purpose.
The situation in some of the food areas was equally precarious. The kitchens operated in alarming conditions, without adequate cabinets for storing food. In one particularly serious case, construction materials were found near food, and food was stored near bathrooms in unsanitary conditions. Only one of the accommodations had an improvised dining room, with benches and wooden tables in a semi-covered area, which was still insufficient for all the workers, forcing the majority to eat their meals in their own beds.
In one of the rooms, occupied by a cook, pans with prepared food were found left open on the floor, exposed to dirt and without refrigeration, to be served the next day. Workers consumed water directly from the tap, without treatment, even taking it in bottles to the workplace.
Conditions at the construction site also revealed serious irregularities. The cafeteria at the workplace used coolers to serve meals, without guaranteeing minimum hygiene conditions. The chemical bathrooms, just eight for approximately 600 workers, were in a deplorable state, without toilet paper, water or adequate maintenance, in addition to not respecting the minimum distances established by regulations.
Workers were exposed to intense solar radiation, showing visible signs of skin damage. Several accidents at work were recorded, including one case in which the worker, due to sleep deprivation caused by inadequate accommodation conditions and long working hours, suffered an accident. Another serious case involved a worker who suffered an eye injury in April and, despite requesting ophthalmological care, never received proper medical follow-up.
The work presented multiple irregularities related to the work environment, leading to the embargo of deep excavation activities and the partial closure of establishments, specifically the kitchen of one of the accommodations. A bench circular saw was also banned for not having any safety measures.
In addition to the degrading conditions, the situation characterizes forced labor, due to several indicators found during inspections: workers were forced to pay a deposit, had 60% of their wages withheld (receiving only 40% in Chinese currency), faced excessive costs for termination contractual and had their passports retained by the company. Early termination of the contract resulted in the loss of the deposit and the amounts retained, in addition to the obligation to pay for the return ticket and refund the value of the outward ticket.
To give you an idea, if a worker tried to terminate the employment contract after six months, he would leave the country without effectively receiving anything for his work, since the discount on the deposit, the ticket to Brazil and the payment of the return ticket , in practice, would constitute total confiscation of the amounts received by workers throughout the employment relationship.
The working day, in turn, was already fixed in the contract at ten hours a day, which was aggravated by the lack of regular granting of the days off provided for in the instrument. A worker who was a victim of an accident at work was identified and had been without a day off for 25 days. This worker reported tiredness and drowsiness at the time of the accident, demonstrating that long working hours and accommodation conditions, which prevent rest, were crucial factors in the accident.
// I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss these charges out of hand because Brazil does have a structural problem of slavery and the 'slavery-like conditions' legal jargon was created to empower task forces like these. It hasn't even been two years since a bunch of upscale vineyards were charged with slave-like conditions of hundreds of workers, and the regional agrilord's association claimed that such conditions were necessary because nobody wanted to work anymore due to government entitlements. And Lula's government is intimiately tied to strengthening and funding these actions.
To what extent this is part of a large geopolitical struggle, I don't think we can say for certain. I think that if it was, then the parts involved would make certain that their positions were echoed in media. Beijing for an instance would talk about this being an unfair audit (and, on the contrary the BYD chairman called for thorough investigations). Instead I think there are just a lot of moving parts. Capitalists may not be in power in China, but they are in Brazil and its not past chinese capitalists to exploit labour and state weakness.
how can you be fairly compensated if you don't control the surplus value you have created?
also yeah it does sound like slavery, Marx wrote a lot about this thing called wage-slavery.
Because it is not that different from any other 'low skill' job in the Brazilian private sector.
It is highly exploitative and as the other commenter said Chinese capitalists can be just as monstrous as domestic ones. And the workers might be saying the conditions are fine because they don't want to lose their jobs.
China Brazil beef
Bejing Beef