Thank you to @[email protected] 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 @[email protected] 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!
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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.
Ecuador’s Indigenous confederation (CONAIE) has announced the beginning of an “uprising” against the neoliberal government of President Daniel Noboa. Mass outrage was triggered by months of constant electricity blackouts and inaction by the right-wing government.
Xi Jinping and Biden to meet in Peru amid transport strike in the country
Presidents of China and the United States participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in the Peruvian capital. Apec aims to promote the free exchange of products between member countries. Biden and Xi are expected to discuss the war in Ukraine, protection against cyber attacks and communication between the two countries’ militaries.
Trump has already announced that his Secretary of State will be Marco Rubio. He will be responsible for guiding US foreign policy and is in favor of putting pressure on China. As a senator, he advocated aid to Taiwan, measures to restrict Chinese commercial operations in the United States and punishments against Beijing for the way it treats Hong Kong and the Uighur minority.
While the meeting between the two is fraught with tension over the question of what Trump’s stance will be in the US-China trade war, the summit is also taking place in the midst of a general strike by Peruvian transport workers. Demonstrators closed several roads in the country and gathered in the capital Lima to protest and march peacefully.
This is the second strike by Peruvian transport workers in a month. In October, Peruvians held a 72-hour general strike to demand government measures to guarantee the safety of taxi drivers, truck drivers, bus drivers and transport workers in general. They denounce a series of extortions and murders committed against these workers by criminal groups, which have resulted in 9 workers being murdered in these conditions.
According to the government, 5,600 soldiers have been deployed to operate on the roads and 13,000 police officers are working in the capital on behalf of Apec. This is the third summit the Peruvian city has hosted. The country’s Congress has also authorized the temporary entry of 600 US military personnel to work during the summit. Until the publication of this report, the cities of Cusco and Puno had seen the biggest protests. These two cities are strategic for access to Bolivia.
The demonstrators are calling for Law 32.108, which changed the definition of organized crime in the country, to be overturned. The regulation was approved by Dina Boluarte’s government and determined that a group of three or more people “with a complex structure and greater operational capacity to commit serious crimes, with the aim of obtaining, directly or indirectly, control of the value chain of an illegal economy or market” would be considered a criminal organization.
A paper by Minqi Li in Monthly Review that I think people here may find interesting.
I couldn’t find the article I saw today, but it was about how Xi Jinping and Lula da Silva will meet after the G20 in Rio de Janeiro. It seems that, due to Trump’s victory, Lula now wants to join the Belt and Road Initiative (it seems that the neoliberals and liberals who support Lula but didn’t like China are really afraid that Trump’s government and protectionist policies will hurt them and are now pushing for Brazil to join China/BRI). With Brazil joining the BRI, I think China’s plan to build the Bioceanic Railway and the Megaport in Peru will succeed. We’ll see, but Trump’s victory may have pushed Brazil more towards China. I think the fact that Biden didn’t give Brazil the money he promised didn’t help relations between these two countries.
From Rania Khalek’s twitter:
Lebanon needs air defenses and the fact that no country has even pretended to offer that shows what a cowardly world we live in.
Palestine also needs air defenses.
Israel is dropping bombs on residential buildings every day and massacring entire families. We’re all just helplessly watching bc this world is pathetic.
The only country that can do that is Russia and they’re being stretched to the limit by endless waves of Ukrainian drones and the occasional yet unpredictable long range missile strikes supplied by Western countries. All of their air defense systems are already fully occupied and new production (which is being churned out slowly) obviously goes to the Ukrainian front.
The West kept Ukraine fighting for a reason.
Any New Zealanders in here, or people that pay attention to international indigeneous issues?
I only know about whats happening because a video went viral on tiktok of Māori MPs disrupting introduction of a bill by performing the Haka:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYeVT5L9/
I also saw a live video of a pretty big pro-Māori march on tiktok. I believe it matches this nationwide 9-day march that is scheduled to arrive in Wellington on Tuesday:
The bill itself seeks to redefine how the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi which is apparently still the basis of the relationship between the crown and the Māori, although its interpretation is constantly evolving. The bill is being proposed by the right-wing ACT, which is a member of the current leading centre-right coalition. It would signficantly affect the rights and well-being of Māori communities according to activists.
Hopefully I am not missing anything huge or misrepresenting anything - this is just a hyperfixation i got onto after seeing the tiktok video. Hopeful that this bill will be defeated!
Argentine President Javier Milei announced the suspension of former President Cristina Kirchner’s pension and widow’s pension, following the confirmation of her conviction for corruption. The decision represents significant savings for the government, according to information from the Casa Rosada.
The suspension generates savings of 21,827,624 million pesos per month. The amount is equivalent to approximately 110,000 reais, according to spokesman Manuel Adorni. During Milei’s term in office, Argentina will not allocate funds to any person convicted of corruption and who has tarnished Argentina’s honor and dignity. Manuel Adorni
Cristina Kirchner said in a statement that her conviction is the result of legal and media persecution. She maintains that she never practiced fraudulent administration during her term as president. The former president said that the decision shows “the little dictator” that has always been inside Milei. “Do you want to team up with the judicial mafia to persecute me too? Are you so afraid of me? I’ll tell you that the dictator Videla was afraid, and very afraid. But you give me nothing but pity and shame,” she said in a post on X.
Coughing hippies on the bus are going to go ecofascist once RFK gains control.
Am I misunderstanding the arrangement or is it kind of fucked up of The Onion to try to get Sandy Hook families to use the recovery fund for acquiring InfoWars? Do they really not have the money?
‘Record number’ of resistance drone attacks target Israel in November
About 1,300 drones were launched against Israel between 1 and 13 November in at least 40 different attacks from the different factions of the Resistance Axis, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 News.
Noting that drone attacks have become “a routine matter,” the Hebrew broadcaster said the army recorded a rate of 3.3 drone attacks per day since the end of October. This is a marked spike from the rate of 2.77 daily attacks in October and 2 per day in September when Tel Aviv expanded its war against Lebanon.
Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has launched daily drone attacks against Israel for the past several weeks, sparking chaos in the northern city of Haifa and reaching targets as far as 145 kilometers deep.
America is so cooked
Trump expected to select Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead HHS
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/14/robert-f-kennedy-jr-trump-hhs-secretary-pick-00188617
Edit: Also rumors that Gorka will be tapped lmao
An update on the dutch education protests (mentioned here by @[email protected] ): In the end student unions and the youth wings of the socialist party and the communist party said they would go anyway to the protest. The police (that yesterday said they couldn’t guarantee the safety) said today that they will facilitate the protest so there was no ban. The labor unions still asked people not to go. In the end around 3-4k people gathered (mostly students and some university employees), which I think was very good given the circumstances. Some universities decided to host local protest on campuses (but as far as I can tell those were small). The university staff and unions are calling for another protest on the 25th of November.
Biden got cured of Dementia after Trump won?
The Cradle article about “Israel’s weird abduction of a Lebanese sea captain” where German peacekeepers assisted in the crime.
It brings up some important history of previous incidences:
Tel Aviv’s use of such covert raids is nothing new. In April this year, an Israeli death squad infiltrated Lebanon to target a currency exchanger, Hussein Srour, who they accused of transferring funds from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) into Gaza. The squad lured Srour to a villa in Beit Mery, Mount Lebanon, where they kidnapped, tortured, interrogated, and ultimately executed him – all while recording the gruesome act for their superiors in Israel.
In 2006, during Israel’s month-long July war on Lebanon, occupation forces raided Baalbek and thought they had captured the late Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, only to discover it was a case of mistaken identity. Instead, the Israelis discovered they had apprehended a plasterer sharing the same name in a failed operation that quickly became the subject of ridicule. They released him soon after.
…
The Israeli Mossad has also carried out kidnappings beyond Lebanon’s borders. In October 2021, they abducted a retired IRGC officer in Damascus, seizing him while he was strolling near the Iranian embassy in the Syrian capital. He was transported to Tel Aviv for interrogation and later released in South Africa.
At the time, Mossad was actively seeking information on missing Israeli pilot Ron Arad, whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. Then-Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett later admitted that the Syrian abduction operation had yielded no new information, though the Iranian general was suspected of holding crucial knowledge.
In yet another shadowy episode, Israeli intelligence operatives kidnapped a Lebanese agricultural engineer in Cambodia, suspecting him of having ties to Hezbollah. Again, after intense and clearly fruitless interrogations, he was eventually released in Thailand.
Thinking back on that anti-war rally that had Tulsi as it’s keynote speaker, and feeling very justified at my criticism of the people who supported that (I’m trying to be nice here since I know there’s at least a few people here who supported it at the time).
