Bulletins and News Discussion from June 10th to June 16th, 2024 - Havana Derangement Syndrome - COTW: Cuba
Bulletins and News Discussion from June 10th to June 16th, 2024 - Havana Derangement Syndrome - COTW: Cuba
Image is of Cuba's National People's Power Assembly.
The most recent geopolitical news around Cuba is the arrival this week of four Russian vessels, including a nuclear submarine - not carrying any nukes, (un)fortunately - to Havana. This will, in Putin's words, merely be a visit celebrating historical ties and no laws are being broken. Nonetheless, it's not hard to imagine how American politicians and analysts are taking the news, especially as it comes shortly after Russia promised an "asymmetrical" response to further NATO involvement in Ukraine (notably, officially allowing the use of US weapons such as missiles in Russia, albeit in a small part of Russian territory, near the border).
Meanwhile, China has been increasingly co-operating with Cuba to overcome the economic hardship created by American sanctions. China has recently re-allowed direct flights to Cuba and has recently donated some small photovoltaic plants as part of an initiative to eventually boost the Cuban energy grid by 1000 MW - and any electrical expansion helps as Cuba is plagued by blackouts which last most of the day. Additionally, the EU has made meaningful contributions to Cuba's energy situation too, with large solar installations. Hopefully, the Belt and Road Initiative will help preserve the Cuban revolution against reactionary forces as the power of US sanctions wanes. The proximity of Cuba to the United States makes this much more challenging than it would be for countries elsewhere, however. Similarly to the situation in Mexico, it seems unlikely that the US's influence over Cuba will massively diminish for decades to come unless there is a catastrophic internal collapse in the American authoritarian regime.
The Havana Syndrome will continue until American morale declines.
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 Cuba! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
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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No, a remote village in the Amazon has not become addicted to pornography
A New York Times report on the arrival of high-speed internet in a remote village in the Amazon ended up bringing a warning about the dark side of the web itself.
Article (Translated from Portuguese)
In April, I hiked more than 80 kilometers through the Amazon rainforest to visit the remote villages of the Marubo people. The 2,000-strong indigenous group had recently been connected to high-speed internet, and I wanted to understand how this had affected their lives.
In a week-long visit, I saw how they used the internet to communicate between villages, talk to distant loved ones and ask for help in emergencies. Many Marubo also told me they were worried that the connection with the outside world would shake their culture, which they have preserved for generations in the forest. Some elders complained about teenagers glued to their cell phones, participating in gossip groups and watching pornography.
As a result of the investigation, the story that the New York Times published on June 2 was partly about introducing the Marubo people to the evils of the internet.
But after publication, this perspective took on an entirely different dimension.
Last week, more than a hundred websites around the world published headlines that falsely claimed that the Marubo had become addicted to pornography. Alongside these headlines, the websites published images of the Marubo people in their villages.
The New York Post, a New York tabloid, was one of the first to say last week that the Marubo people were "addicted to pornography". Dozens of media outlets quickly followed suit. The headline on the TMZ website was perhaps the most blunt: "TRIBE CONNECTION TO STARLINK PROVES PORN ADDICTION!!!"
The Post and TMZ did not respond to the Times' requests for a statement.
Similar headlines have proliferated around the world, including in countries such as the UK, Germany, Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Nigeria, Mexico and Chile. RT, the Russian state media, published a text with the claim in Arabic. There were countless videos, memes and posts on social media.
The Marubo people are not addicted to pornography. There was no suggestion of this in the villages, nor in the New York Times report.
Instead, the report cited a complaint made by a Marubo leader that some teenagers had shared pornography in WhatsApp groups. This is especially worrying, he said, because Marubo culture disapproves even of kissing in public.
Many of the sites that distorted this information are news aggregators, which means that their business model largely revolves around repackaging reports from other news outlets, often using sensationalist headlines in order to sell ads.
As these sites also post links to the original report, they are generally protected by law, even if they misrepresent the content.
Today, these types of sites and misleading headlines have become yet another part of the internet economy. To an experienced web user, these tactics are familiar.
For the Marubo, however, the experience was disconcerting and infuriating.
"These allegations are unfounded, untrue and only reflect a biased ideological current that disrespects our autonomy and our identity," said Enoque Marubo, a Marubo leader who brought Starlink to his villages, in a video posted on his networks on Sunday evening.
According to him, the Times report overemphasized the negative aspects of the internet and "resulted in the dissemination of a distorted view".
Alfredo Marubo (all Marubo use the same surname), the leader who said in the Times report that he was worried about pornography, also spoke out on Tuesday in a statement through his indigenous association. He said that misleading headlines have the potential to generate "irreversible exposure to people's image and, for this reason, we feel exposed in the face of the misinterpretation of true news".
Eliesio Marubo, a lawyer and indigenous rights activist, is one of the best-known figures among the Marubo people. That's why, when the headlines went viral, Eliesio said he received tens of thousands of messages and tags in comments on social networks. Many mocked the Marubo people, he said.
Eliesio said the report opened up an important debate about the sudden arrival of high-speed internet in remote indigenous groups. This discussion shows the promises of the internet, but illustrates its dangers with misinformation.
"The internet does bring a lot of ease," he said, "but it also brings a lot of difficulty."
🎶 The internet is for p0rn! 🎶
do you have a link to the Portuguese article?
The New York Times is incredibly lazy. They found a nice headline and filled the story in to match. Many such cases