Image is of China’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Sheng, meeting Taliban Prime Minister Hasan Akhund in September 2023.

I know the Rambo title card is a hoax.

The COTW was chosen in the wake of the aborted sequel to the attempted assassination of Trump being performed by a guy who is VERY enthusiastic about Ukraine, to the point of trying to sneak Afghan soldiers into Ukraine by setting up a house in Pakistan to house them and then further transport them. He also apparently offered to send thousands of Afghan soldiers to Haiti to help them combat gang violence. Whomst among us doesn’t have the numbers of thousands of Afghan soldiers on speed-dial. Do you reckon there’s a group chat?

Anyway, while there is still no official recognition of the Taliban’s government by any country, China has taken a different course than the late USSR and the US - forming economic in-roads, rather than trying their own invasion. This has been a big boon for the struggling country, with various mines and oil and agriculture deals helping keep things barely afloat. A total disintegration of the social fabric of Afghanistan is not in the interest of any of the powers that border it - China, Pakistan, and Iran, with Russia not too far away - so an interesting dynamic of helping-without-official-recognition has been established. I wonder who will be the first country to fully recognize them?

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 Afghanistan! 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

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA 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.
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.

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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.

  • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    14·
    2 months ago

    I appreciate our comrad’s input and contributions 99% of the time, but if they are even a smidge offended, legitimately or not, they become the most sanctimonious ass I’ve ever seen. So no, not always, but often enough that it’s weird.

      • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        13·
        2 months ago

        No. But vague and venemous comments alone don’t get the job done. I agree, linkless news is just gossip, Nazi news is only useful in so far as we learn what the fascists are spinning. However, your formating critiques, like capitalizing names, comes across as pedantic and ceremonial and not in a good way. People engage in information in different ways, and demanding we all show respect in a niche Internet forum where the actors being discussed will never see it is a little ridiculous.

        I think your worthy point is that linkless news isn’t worth the electricity it takes to type the comment. Rather than letting your indignation at tone and substantive criticism get conflated into a single line of criticism, simply stating “link or remove” and then adding to that any additional criticism would be better. At the very least someone who, presumably, shared something in good faith, could attempt to then modify it in a way that better pleased the audience. As it went at first, all you did was launch a barb that seems alienating to anyone who didn’t immediately share your attitudes and make the same connection, and almost certainly the poster themselves. I think that’s a shame if we want the News Thread to be more than a hobby forum for a couple dozen power posters.

        • Boredom [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          6·
          2 months ago

          There’s also the fact that the trenches massacre thing happened awhile ago. I guess we just assume people follow the same feeds we do. “X countries leads reprisals against islamist aligned ethnic group” is a common controversy, for example it’s how the west finds a way to critique wagner’s successes. (And let’s be clear, reprisal killings do happen which is not good in multi ethnic states.

        • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
          11·
          2 months ago

          I don’t want this to be more than it is, please don’t see this as damning your entire involvement here. Sometimes touching grass is healthy and fine, don’t let me stop you from doing that if that’s what you need, but don’t let my bristling push you out either. I think my direct response to your other comment captures more the spirit of my critique, but I assure you it’s a friendly one. We all have habits or traits that sometimes rub people the wrong way, and at the end of the day part of why I’ve become reactive this one is just a numbers game. Like I said, I appreciate 99% of your contributions, but due to visibility by volume alone that means I see a good amount of the 1% too.

        • carpoftruth [any, any]@hexbear.netMEnglish
          6·
          2 months ago

          you view the earlier post as improper protocol in a forum post. fine - then explain that instead of immediately resorting to the most bad faith explanation possible, that lack of capital letters and flippant wording means deep disdain for the concept of the people in the global south or wars of liberation. if you think something is that disrespectful and terrible but you aren’t sure, consider using the report button. mods here actually care. I appreciate your contribution to these threads, but there are enough clear and obvious ‘enemies of the people’ without jumping at shadows.

      • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        11·
        2 months ago

        Pattern of behavior over years of reading the News Mega as far as I’m concerned. In this particular context, someone posted (linkless, shame on them) news. If she had a real problem with it’s presentation or tone she could have stated clearly what that was and invited the OP to reformat it. Instead, we get unspecific accusations of “disdain for the people.” Rather than critique the presentation in an informative way that let’s the OP know and grow, she simply besmirches their character and assumes the wagons will circle on her side for a good ole ratio.

        I know she can offer useful criticism too because she does as a response to the same comment! And good. But the venom is still present and unnecessary in my opinion. Being so quick to side swipe a comrade at minor offenses isn’t a good way to go about life.