Bulletins and News Discussion from August 5th to August 11th, 2024 - LGBT - COTW: Iraq
Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.
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 Iraq! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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.
Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González did not appear before the Supreme Court this morning. He was summoned as part of the ongoing process to investigate and validate the election results. Hardly a surprising move, after he and his puppet master María Corina Machado already proclaimed a win. Once that was done, they would never submit themselves to an arbiter
While González did not show up, Zulia governor Manuel Rosales did, as the legal representative of one of the parties on the electoral ticket that backed the main opposition candidate. He demanded the full publication of results by the CNE
Has Venezuela revealed their next move? Can they move forward without him? I know it'll look bad if they hold him in contempt, because his whole reason for not showing up is his fear he'll be arrested and doing that will prove the opposition right in the eyes of the US-backed international community, but also not sure what else they can do.
They need to get this election thing settled and I know according to that other link they're hoping to get opposition voter information to prove that it was fabricated. But they can't get it if he doesn't show up I'm guessing.
The investigation on the North Macedonia hacker attack has continued. Seems like there were some Republican politicans in North Macedonia a day before the election in Venezuela, which is very sus.
Can they move forward without him? I know it'll look bad if they hold him in contempt, because his whole reason for not showing up is his fear he'll be arrested and doing that will prove the opposition right in the eyes of the US-backed international community, but also not sure what else they can do. They need to get this election thing settled and I know according to that other link they're hoping to get opposition voter information to prove that it was fabricated. But they can't get it if he doesn't show up I'm guessing.
I think the opposition will send a representative, as they did with Manuel Rosales to negociate something with Maduro and the Supreme Court. The US probably doesn't want to lose the oil that Venezuela sells to them. I think the US will tell Gonzalez to calm down. I think that by the end of this month everything will be sorted out and the US will pretend that they haven't tried another coup in Venezuela.