Image is of the Galapagos Islands, sourced from here.
Moving the megathread topic slightly away from the chaos of the United States and going back around the world, we will begin with paying attention to Ecuador.
Ecuador has been ruled by Daniel Noboa since 2023, after he won the snap election. He’s about as ghoulish as one gets; a neoliberal right-winger and as much as a marionette to the United States as Milei. Two months ago, he gave effective control of the Galapagos Islands to the United States and is allowing them to build a military base there - beginning the potential conversion from a natural paradise to unsinkable aircraft carrier.
We are now seeing the rematch between Noboa and Gonzalez; the latter of which is a leftist politician with a similar ideology to Correa, the socialist who ruled Ecuador from 2007 to 2017. The divide in Ecuador today is largely between the Correaists and those who oppose them, though Leonidas Iza represents the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador and commands a notable share of the vote.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
I expected Hamas to do what Lebanon have and not respond to the violations to release prisoners and briefly rebuild. Isn’t this pretty much how Israel does ceasefires, where they make up excuses to keep slaughtering?
Yes which is why there will be no peace until “Israel” is destroyed and wiped off the map. They are agreement incapable bloodthirsty war pigs
The ceasefire violations by Israel were the usual things that Israel does, like bombing people for not taking the correct routes back to their homes or not obeying the “fine print” of the ceasefire deal, or delaying the implementation until Israel wants to move forward and bombing until the last minute. I don’t think these Israeli ceasefire violations are the reason Hamas is no longer releasing hostages, that’s to be expected with Israel.
The difference now with Gaza is that it is clear that there is no serious plan or offer from the United States, Israel, and/or the Arab states in the region to implement the third phase of the ceasefire, which is to do with the rebuilding and governance of Gaza once the hostage exchanges are completed. Without this, there is no reason for Hamas to abide by the ceasefire agreement and continue releasing hostages. If Hamas gives up the hostages while there is no actual plan for phase 3 of the ceasefire, Hamas is essentially giving up all of their leverage for nothing in return. The latest hostage exchange was the start of phase 2, with the IDF withdrawing from the Netzarim Corridor as a result. So Israel gave up this leverage (occupying the Netzarim Corridor) to get phase 2 underway. Hamas wants to remain the side with the most leverage here.
Also it’s questionable how many Israeli hostages are still alive, what is their health condition, etc. The last three hostages that were released by Hamas (to start phase 2 of the ceasefire agreement) were visibly malnourished and underweight, in contrast to all the previously released hostages, who appeared healthy, with some even having gained weight. Gaza has been under genocidal conditions for 15 months now with Israeli bombings that have killed hostages and with minimal food and water. So another angle is that there simply aren’t that many Israeli hostages left that are alive or in good health, and most of the healthy and alive hostages have already been released. If Hamas releases the few remaining hostages now, they also lose all of their leverage, with no plan for phase 3 of the ceasefire in place.