Bulletins and News Discussion from December 18th to December 24th, 2023 - Chad el-Mandeb - COTW: Yemen
Image is of Yemen seizing the first ship in its blockade of Israel (the Galaxy Leader) with a helicopter raid.
Alternate title: What If It Was The Bab El-Womandeb And It Was Just For The Ladies?
Ansarallah is a key component of the broader Resistance movement, backed by Iran, and has been a stalwart member in engineering the ongoing collapse of Zionism. It has steadily escalated both its rhetoric and, rarely nowadays, its actions, proving that the mythical "red line" might actually exist in the world after all, after going MIA in both Russia and China. It has been striking first Israel-owned ships heading through the Bab el-Mandeb - the strait that leads into the Red Sea and then to the Suez Canal - and, recently, has demonstrated its promise that any ships that intend to dock in Israel will be attacked. While this is really only half a blockade, the cost of going around Africa is significant, and Western insurance companies really don't like it when their ships get blasted by missiles and drones. Several shipping companies have already stated their intention to alter/stop shipping routes through the Red Sea, trying to prompt the West to find a "solution".
Despite US naval presence in the area, Yemen possesses the ability to strike the oil refining facilities of the Gulf monarchies, leaving the US in a very difficult position. If they attack Yemen, then not only do Western ships risk being attacked directly, but those oil refineries may go up in smoke depending on if they help the West - and global oil prices will skyrocket, in an already declining world economy - and it might cost several Western leaders their leadership positions, including Biden himself. A regional war could ultimately tumble into worldwide chaos.
Equally, however, the US cannot afford to lose Israel. It is the single most important American imperial outpost, perhaps alongside Taiwan. If Zionism is destroyed as a local destabilizing influence, then the Russia-China-Iran axis will find itself in a leadership position over the region. Israeli military losses in Gaza increase every single day as they advance further into the labyrinth death trap under the obligation to show some kind of military victory, with Hamas' strategy of attrition taking its toll. And Hezbollah sits there, having destroyed most of the border infrastructure, silently threatening the obliteration of Israel's infrastructure under the rain of a hundred thousand missiles.
As world attention gradually shifts away from the Gaza genocide, we continue to approach the brink.
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.
Patricia Bullrich, Argentina's Security Minister, said that during the demonstrations tomorrow, December 20, there will be drones taking pictures of the protesters to identify those who "impede traffic".
This is important because yesterday, the Minister for Human Capital said that the government would cut off social benefits from identified demonstrators.
The Governor of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, has said that he will not apply the security protocol proposed by Bullrich
China :troll:
The government of China, led by Xi Jinping, will not renew the Swap with Argentina, governed by Javier Milei.
According to El Diario, the funds will remain frozen until the new Argentine government establishes formal relations with China.
China was supposed to pass on the sum of U$6.5 billion to Argentina, leading it to believe that the Argentine government used national resources in October and November to pay the IMF installments.
Milei recently asked Sérgio Massa to help him with the Chinese.
lol
The Swap was supposed to be used to pay off Argentina's loans with the IMF, but that wasn't the case in October or November, which leads us to believe that national reserves were used.
Not only China froze the swap, but we also managed to anger them even more, putting our relations at risk. They recalled their ambassador who will be returning in January (if he even returns..), meanwhile the argentinian representation in China is just a secretary, a very low category for such important economic ties, this shows that milei doesn't give a shit about China and is more than willing to demolish our relations with them. To make things even worse, days before our completely amateur foreign relations minister (an economist with zero diplomatic skills, Diana Mondino) angered a chinese delegation by making comments about Taiwan and their independence and "our right to trade with them" (for some reason she had to do this), she also attacked BRICS, saying that she wants our country to pull out before January 1st.
Insanity, pure insanity. milei is willing to get this country's foreign relations behind the US and "Israel" just because he feels like it, because he's a dogmatic piece of shit. RealPolitik can fuck off and die I guess.
Also, iirc, Lula has said he will not talk with Milei, nor will Lula's vp. Also, the Secretariat of Institutional Affairs said that Milei should openly apologize to everything he has said about Brazil and Lula during the election.
Milei literally destroyed the relation he had with his two biggest trading partners.
Can't tell for sure, however, this situation cannot continue like this for too long. Not only food went up in price about 50% in a week, but also medicine, but in this case some prices spiked up to 80%. PAMI, which is an institution that provides healthcare for retired people, will most likely stop giving some medicine for free and start applying prices on them, the burden falling on old people. Deposits in pesos are about to be washed away, the Central Bank announced that 30-day deposits are going to get much lowered interest rates, about 9% or so. So, if monthly inflation is 25/30% and interest rates on your deposit is 9%, you're getting absolutely ass blasted. I think they want people to switch to dollars, so they might dollarise later down the line, if they make it.
This scenario doesn't sound well for long term governance, people are only going to get angry. When people struggle to put food on their table, shit will pop off very soon.
Hoping y'all have some decent communists working on the ground because this feels ripe for some sort of revolution. If the fascists can somehow spin themselves as being better than Millei then I have concerns.
Also, it seems Milei has given a lot of medical supplies and helicopters to Ukraine. And now they're really needed, as Bahia Blanca is suffering from the worst storms the region has ever seen.