Bulletins and News Discussion from July 22nd to July 28th, 2024 - Fracas in Dhaka - COTW: Bangladesh
Bulletins and News Discussion from July 22nd to July 28th, 2024 - Fracas in Dhaka - COTW: Bangladesh
Image is of vehicles set aflame by protestors near a government building.
Since July 1st, students have protested the unpopular proposal in which 30% of government jobs would be reserved for veterans of the 1971 War of Independence and their relatives. In a country with a youth unemployment rate of around 20% and a population of 170 million, a large number of otherwise eligible and competent people would have been forced out due to favouritism for veterans. As with basically every country on the planet over the last couple years, Bangladesh is suffering from inflation and an increasing cost-of-living, further exacerbating tensions.
The student protests have been met with significant violence by the government - local newspapers report that over a hundred protestors have been killed, and thousands have been injured. Guns and tear gas have been used. Additionally, the government has completely cut internet access throughout Bangladesh to prevent organizing, which has had some success in dividing protestors, but has also only further angered various parts of the country due to the massive impact to Bangladesh's online industries and various startups. And a national curfew has been in place to limit movement, with the population told to remain home if they want to be safe.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh relented, stating that now, only 5% of government jobs would be reserved for veterans and their families. 2% would be allocated to members of minorities, with the remaining 93% distributed on merit. A period of tentative calm has arrived, but Hasnat Abdullah, a coordinator of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, has stated that unless the government restores the internet, removes the curfew, releases detainees, and forces certain ministers to resign within a few days, then the protests will resume.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country 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 Country of the Week is Bangladesh! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail 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 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.
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If Maduro wins, what will the US do? Probably try to coup Maduro again or just accept defeat and negociate more deportation of Venezuelans back to Venezuela?
With the Ukraine front collapsing and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon up in the air, they don't have the juice to properly coup a country the size of Venezuela
You don't need the whole country, just pull a Libya style fiasco in Zulia state and then make up some nonsense to create a buffer zone for BP cough I mean British Guyana oops I mean Guyana.
That only works if the military turns on Maduro like the Libyan Army turned on Gaddafi, the Venezuelan military both paramilitary and active duty are locked down tight by the government and the jungles along the border with Guyana block any real force projection from that direction
The coup movement's best hope was always the Columbian border, without it there's no hope of Zulia state getting supplied and that avenue has been foreclosed for the time being by Columbia itself
The coup movement's best hope was always the Columbian border, without it there's no hope of Zulia state getting supplied and that avenue has been foreclosed for the time being by Columbia itself
With Petro as the President of Colombia, I doubt the US would be able to use Colombia to supply a coup in Venezuela. Which is one of the reasons why they went to Guyana.
I think nothing ever happens gang should win this. I don't think the US wants to risk another oil crisis right before the election. A massive new inflation crisis or worse right before the election could be one way for Kamala to lose.
If Israel continues to escalate and Ukraine manages a lucky hit on some important Russian infraestructure, a Venezuelan coup would maybe push things over the edge.
Current US approach to Latin America has been very passive so probably nothing
The amount of articles planted in the anglo press deriding Maduro and the Venezuelan electoral process makes me think they definitely have something planned. They have been laying a pretext to dispute the results and are fomenting a coup atmosphere. It is the same playbook as the 2019 Bolivia coup. In the lead-up, Bolivia, a country that the New York Times and Washington Post couldn't give less of a shit about, was getting pages of ink spilled about them on a regular basis, then in the aftermath of the election you have ratfuck NGOs like the OAS coming out and straight up lying about election "inconsistencies." By contrast, this was all notably absent from the stillborn 2024 coup attempt. It also echos of the handwringing over "corruption" which occurred in media outlets like NPR for a long time in the lead-up to Operation Car Wash (lavajato) in Brazil.
Meanwhile, the president of Rwanda has won 4 elections in a row with 90%+ of votes lmao
They did intervene in Peru, after the 2022 coup against Castillo, and forced Ecuador to send their weapons and tanks to Ukraine.
I also very much doubt that Milei didn't receive some US backing, though the liberals were doing a fairly bad job which made them easy to oppose.
though honestly the US probably has a ton of ops throughout the continent, and definitely some in each country, so the bar for "US involvement" can be set wherever you want. there isn't a single country on the planet that hasn't had US meddling over the last decade or two, just depends how you define it.
Milei received support from Argentina own Right-Wing and bourgeoise. The Socdems were really unpopular, though I suppose the US and IMF was happy to see Milei win, instead of the more Chinese friendly peronist Massa.
i think they are just going to ignore them, they are spread to thin to proyect power in latam lately and will probably still need the venezuelan oil exports to keep their energy going, i think think they will call Maduro a dictator but i dont think they will do much to try to overthrow him, for now at least