Image is of the Cuban flag and the Pride flag on the Havana Health Ministry building.

Inspired by a highly upvoted recommendation by @[email protected]:

We need to kill the Mega Posting Wars meme. It wasn’t very funny to start with and now I get the feeling some people are taking it way too seriously. Clogging up the news thread with bullshit just to try to out post the trans mega is just dumb and annoying.

The News Megathread is now under trans martial law:

  1. Loving trans people on this site and elsewhere is strictly mandatory.

  2. Posting about the “comment wars” between the trans and news megathreads is now strongly discouraged inside the news megathread. No shame in it - I also recently made jokes about it - but though they were almost always just jokes, it was unrelated to current events and was beginning to feel more like padding the comment count instead of trying to improve the quality of the thread. If you want to boost comments and engagement here, then post articles and analysis!

The COTW (Chemical of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific chemical every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied chemicals. If you’ve wanted to talk about the chemical 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 Chemicals of the Week are Estrogen and Testosterone! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants.

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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.

Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.

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.
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.

  • MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    102·
    2 months ago

    UK anti-terror police & intelligence services detained journalist Richard Medhurst recently and have now arrested Palestine activist and Gaza linked journalist on terrorism charges.

    She gave the details of her impossible to abide by bail conditions in an interview someone else had to set up as she’s forbidden from travelling, touching any electronic device.

    I’ve had to remove the link entirely. The female journalist in question Sarah Wilkinson. Her Twitter account seems to be being run by a friend or her son now and you can search out the couple of interviews she’s given so far

    Sorry for the rubbish links. Xcancel just 403s for me and none of the four Hexbear recommended YouTube link alternatives work. All either don’t work at all or are not allowing new users / posts. If the links are too tricky or you don’t have time to watch the 30-45min interview here’s the key points.

    • First thing in the morning her home was raised by anti-terror police who wouldn’t identify themselves, some even wearing balaclavas to hide their identities
    • They claimed a warrant exists but would not show it or tell her what was contained in it as anti-terror legislation says they don’t have to
    • She wasn’t allowed to dress, call anyone, or get her medication (she suffers from Crohn’s disease).
    • The tightness of the cuffs caused injuries to her hands but weren’t loosened
    • They ransacked her house and physically restrained her son, including throwing him up against the wall.
    • They confiscated any and all electronic items, phones, and computers, as well as files, address books and more. These are the items that were on the official itemized list they provided her.
    • They also stole money, personal items, and her passport, taking them without listing them.
    • Taking her passport without itemising it guarantees she cannot meet the terms of her bail as she is required to turn it in on a future date. Her bail conditions also stop her applying for a replacement. The penalty for not being able to hand it in is likely to be 5 years in prison without a trial or legal representation.
    • She also cannot travel, including buying any form of train or bus ticket despite living in a rural village, seeming including to her required ‘check ins’ on future dates.
    • They deliberately desecrated her parents’ ashes, spreading them so she couldn’t retrieve them all, and damaged the urn.
    • They loaded her into an unmarked black van, cuffed but unsecured and gave her a rough ride.
    • They deliberately drove 45 minutes in the wrong direction, away from the police station they said they were taking her to. At this point she seriously considered that she might be being kidnapped as they still hadn’t shown her a warrant or verifiable ID and were hiding their identities.
    • While being held, they denied her any medication meaning that she also couldn’t eat, essentially denying her food or drink.
    • They eventually brought her a cup of tea and said she could have her meds as soon as she’d drank it. When she did, they then denied her meds again in an apparent attempt to make her ill.
    • When she demanded to see a doctor they eventually sent in someone they claimed was a nurse. However, she seemed to have little to no medical knowledge, didn’t seem to actually know anything about Crohn’s disease despoite claiming to and couldn’t even spell it when asked to. She did not appear to be a qualified medical professional and wouldn’t give any details of her qualifications.
    • They tried to deny her access to a lawyer, claiming she didn’t have that right until she repeatedly demonstrated that she knew she did under Section 12 of the law. They eventually relented for the interrogation.
    • She gave a no comment interview, but the questions they asked over several hours were apparently very interesting. They were riddled with racist comments and questions that implied Palestinian’s weren’t human, they repeatedly asked her “why she would value Palestinians over people like us” which she took to mean white and/or Zionist.
    • She also says that her interrogators frequently used talking points, language, and tactics that organisations like the IDF and Shin-Bet do.
    • Most notable was their interrogation and demand that she give details of the people in Gaza that she works with via a charity that digs wells and provides water. They wanted names, locations, contact details, phone numbers etc. Naturally she refused as she suspects they would be then given to Israel to use for targeting purposes.