New preamble:

Palestinian resistance groups have launched an operation in and around Gaza to fight the genocidal settler state oppressing them. Thousands of rockets have been launched towards the so-called state of Israel, overwhelming the Iron Dome. Settlers and the troops protecting them are being killed in the settlements surrounding Gaza, with many caught by surprise in the first few hours of the operation.

Palestinians are taking many Israeli settlers and soldiers hostage and bringing them back to Gaza. An Israeli general, Nimrod Aloni, has been confirmed captured. Palestinians are also taking military and civilian equipment back. Drones and MANPADS appear to be in use, and a number of Merkava tanks have been destroyed/disabled and their occupants removed and taken hostage. Palestinian forces appear to be heading in two main directions so far: southeast in the direction of Be'er Sheva, and along the coast in the direction of Ashkelon, but settlements all around Gaza have been assaulted and taken. It is obviously unknown how far they intend to go, or what their intermediate goals are.

Israel is bombing the Gaza Strip with aircraft, destroying buildings. It appears that their intelligence on the location of Palestinian forces outside of Gaza is very poor, and haven't been able to meaningfully strike them. Netanyahu has given a statement declaring that Israel is in a state of war. Iran has issued statements in support of the uprising, and Israel has responded with hostility to those comments. In all, the IDF appears to still be in a shockingly bad state hours after the assault began.

Old preamble on Antarctica:

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Much of the information for this news post, including both the images in the preamble, came from this article at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which has been circulating in the media lately.

Image has been taken from this article.

Antarctica has had a uniquely bad year.

While the sea ice extent in the last 50 years or so has been very gradually declining, it has done so very slowly on average - by 0.1% per decade. This began to change in 2016:

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Even so, this year is different, showing a remarkable decrease in the maximum sea ice extent. It is unconfirmed (I think) but this year may be the first in which the maximum extent fails to reach 17 million square kilometers - and is more than one million square kilometers lower than the previous record low maximum in 1986.

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The fall in sea ice has been linked by some researchers to warming in the uppermost ocean layer caused by lateral and upward mixing of warmer water. The ocean is a gigantic heat sink, and has been absorbing much of the excess heat that humanity has generated via the greenhouse effect. But put enough heat into a heat sink and it will eventually fill up.

These changes in sea ice extent is no mere abstract climate worry or scientific curiosity. It is having a direct, catastrophic impact on the Antarctic's ecosystem. Emperor penguin colonies have had trouble breeding, so much so that:

...there is high probability that no chicks had survived last year in four of the five known emperor penguin colonies in the central and eastern Bellingshausen Sea. This was because the sea ice had melted well before chicks would have developed waterproof feathers. ... Today's report says about one-third of the 62 known emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica were affected by partial or total sea ice loss between 2018 and 2022.

And, last year, scientists conducted a study on the two plants that are able to grow near Antarctica, looking at a single Antarctic island for simplicity, and found that the populations of these plants had exploded in the last decade - growing as much in the last decade as they had in the last 50 years - due to rising air temperatures. It was warm enough for the scientists to wear shorts and remove their shirts.

The Country of the Week is Syria! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The weekly update is here!

Links and Stuff

The bulletins site is down.

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists

Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can.

Resources For Understanding The War

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.

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.

Telegram Channels

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

Pro-Russian

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

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.

Last week's discussion post.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Evo Morales will stand for the presidency, Luis Arce expelled

    The congress of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS-IPSP) has voted to present Evo Morales as its candidate for the presidency at the 2025 elections and has also voted to expel current President Luis Arce from the MAS, signifying the party’s formal split with the government.

    At the national party congress today in Lauca Ñ, Cochabamba, the plenum voted to approve two resolutions of the political commission, the first of which reads:

    1.- Ratify Evo Morales as president of the MAS-IPSP.

    2.- Declare Evo Morales Ayma as the sole candidate of the MAS-IPSP for the Bicentennial elections 2025 – 2030.

    3.- That in the 2025 elections, no alliance be made with other political parties.

    4.- In compliance with the current statutes, all candidates for other positions must be members with at least 10 years of seniority.

    5.- Instances of betrayal be sent to the disciplinary committee to consider their expulsion from the political party.

    6.- Declare maximum alert and state of emergency to avoid the banning of the MAS-IPSP and protect the candidacy of Evo Morales for the national elections.

    The second resolution, with regard to Luis Arce’s expulsion reads as follows:

    Ratify the legal and legitimate consensual support for brother Evo Morales, as president of the national leadership of the MAS-IPSP Brother Commander Evo Morales Ayma is confirmed and declared by consensus as the only candidate for the bicentennial While the process of requesting and registering these results within a duly reasonable period, the new board must convene the next congresses; Organic congress to review the statutes, Political congress, Congress to discuss the bicentennial agenda

    The corresponding disciplinary and ethics court is instructed to initiate legal actions for expulsion from the MAS-IPSP, against elected authorities who were denounced during the development of this commission, among them deputies, senators, and other authorities for betrayal of the political instrument MAS IPSP, expulsion of the representative, Deysi Choque, expulsion of the councilor Leydi Guzmán Arispe, expulsion of the departmental assembly member Raquel Valencia Aspeti, expulsion of the substitute deputy Samuel Mamani Sánchez, expulsion of the departmental assembly member Jorge Antonio Isnado, expulsion of the national representative of Oruro Mirian Martines, expulsion of the Oruro deputy, Juan José Jauregui, expulsion of other brothers and sisters who betrayed the ideological principles of the MAS-IPSP, expulsion of the deputy Rolando Cuellar, and expulsion of a further 20 names

    We urge and demand that the constitutional court express itself as soon as possible regarding the unconstitutional appeals filed against the MAS-IPSP We repudiate any attempt to ban the MAS-IPSP

    We repudiate the acts of violence at the CSUTCB congress in the city of El Alto. The corresponding instances and channels must be respected regarding their delegates and election of candidates

    The self-expulsion of Luis Arce Catacora and David Choquehuanca for not attending the MAS-IPSP congress is acknowledged The reading of the protocol on depatriarchalization is available for consideration by the plenary session, by the congress.