Bulletins and News Discussion from May 20th to May 26th, 2024 - Never Break TrueAnon's Rules For Life - COTW: Azerbaijan
Image is of Azerbaijan's President, Aliyev (left) and Armenia's President, Pashinyan (right) in a meeting a month or two after Azerbaijan took Nagorno-Karabakh.
Never go to a second location.
Always get the interior ministry post.
Never get in a helicopter or any small aircraft.
If someone with a gun enters your car, they’re gonna kill you.
If someone tells you they’re not going to kill you, they’re calming you down to kill you later.
Never give up your nukes.
Never release the opposition's political prisoners.
Never let the opposition delay elections.
If someone starts to get into German runes, drop them.
Never trust a South American with a German name.
Never move anywhere for a religion.
Never go into the sewers unless you’re a sewer guy.
If someone’s trying to get you to commit a crime, they're FBI (sometimes CIA or military intelligence).
Never become an FBI informant.
If you do become an FBI informant, record everything.
Never relinquish your arms.
Always get it in writing.
If you keep gambling, you’ll eventually win.
Never talk to cops without a lawyer.
Always pay your mercenaries.
Don’t let anyone take your passport.
To add an addendum to rule 3, never put your President and Foreign Minister in the same helicopter or small aircraft. Especially if doing so in bad weather conditions. Especially if you're already under threat from a hostile nuclear power in the region with a proclivity for terrorism (though this probably isn't Israel's doing, in this particular case).
Anyway, Azerbaijan. Not a great country, I think. Did some genocides. They're a petrostate that is hosting Cop29, which I suppose is a way for the bourgeoisie to implicitly convey their contempt for the green movement. They got weapons from Israel, too.
Just for the record, there's an Iranian province called East Azerbaijan, which is not the same as Azerbaijan.
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 Azerbaijan! 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.
Police have joined anti-austerity protesters in the province of Misiones, Argentina. Officers are now on strike, and Milei's “libertarian” government has had to send federal agents from the capital to try to keep order.
Misiones is a strategic province bordering both Brazil and Paraguay. The protests began as a teachers’ strike against low pay and inflation. The police then refused orders to repress the population and instead joined them, citing their own low pay as the reason.
A police mutiny is illegal, and if it spreads to other regions, it would be a threat to Milei's power. Numerous Latin American countries have seen a coup result from police mutinies, such as Bolivia in 2019 and Ecuador in 2010.
The coups of 2019 and 2010 were backed by the US. It failed in Ecuador because Rafael Correia literally slapped the coup leaders in the face and the army, with the support of Correia's supporters, stormed the headquarters and arrested the coup plotters.
The 2019 coup was temporarily successful, but in the following election, due to internal pressure, Jeaninez had to accept the results of the election, which elected Lucho.
In Argentina, things seem to be getting worse and worse for Ancaptain. If the police stops following his orders, his only option would be to use the Armed Forces to maintain order and crush the strikes, and unlike in Brazil and Colombia. The president needs the congress approval to put the Army on the streets (I believe it's because of the 1976 coup). De La Rua, during his last days of goverment attempted that and failed, the next day his goverment was over and he fled the capital by helicopter.