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

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 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.

  • 小莱卡English
    45·
    2 months ago

    Geopolitics nerds, please someone confirm me if the petro-dollar news are real, i’ve seen these news circulating around on minor sites and from even some shady guys like Jimmy Dore. Something of this magnitude can’t go unseen which makes me wonder if its just fake news. I can not state how closely linked the petro-dolar is to US hegemony.

    https://www.tbsnews.net/world/global-economy/saudi-arabias-petro-dollar-exit-global-finance-paradigm-shift-875321

    • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.netMEnglish
      33·
      2 months ago

      I poked around foreign news sites and didn’t come up with anything outside of crank sites.

      Best I can guess is that most likely they’re currently conducting negotiations to create a new agreement with the u.s diplomatic corps trying to woo MBS with enough concessions to draft an amended renewal.

      • 小莱卡English
        14·
        2 months ago

        Those who believe that oil being traded in U.S. dollars gives the U.S. economy a unique advantage in the global economy have it exactly the wrong way around. The U.S. economy is the central economy in the global system because it is the most open, innovative, and productive economy in the world, and because of this, the U.S. dollar is the most convenient, liquid and reliable medium of exchange.

        Aight.

        Idk but handwaving the importance of the petro-dollar seems very cocky to me, while the US has dethroned SA as a net exporter in oil, SA is still a huge portion of it. It is still a considerate quantitative hit on the worldwide demand of dollars.

        Edit: the whole article has this anti-dialectical view of things, as if there cannot be an alternative.

        I find this article a much better read than these liberal ghouls, in 2006(!): https://web.archive.org/web/20091015142135/http://mathaba.net/news/?x=530827

          • 小莱卡English
            4·
            2 months ago

            Well, let’s look at what difference it makes whether China and Saudi Arabia do their oil trade in yen or dollars.

            If you’re doing your oil trade and other foreign trade in dollars, then you have to save up dollars to have the money to pay for the oil. You have to have a U.S. bank account. You have to hold U.S. dollars.

            And that means you take your domestic currency, your domestic yen or whatever the currency is, and buy dollars, buy dollars, and that supports the dollars exchange rate.

            And it provides the United States central bank with the foreign exchange coming in so that it can afford to pay for the military balance of payments costs of keeping military bases all around the yen countries that use the yen or the ruble or other foreign currencies.

            So it makes a very big difference. If Saudi Arabia pays for its oil in Chinese yen, then it’s going to have to save in Chinese yen, and it will have to accumulate yen, which indeed it’s doing in its foreign reserves.

            And China will hold Saudi Arabian currency in its foreign reserves instead of holding the dollar. So there will be a mutual inflow of savings into each other’s currency in order to finance their own savings investment.

            And this inflow will not go into Silicon Valley Bank or Chase Manhattan or other banks to be turned over to the U.S. Treasury as part of its foreign exchange reserves. That’s the difference.

            It seems that you are the one that do not get it, this was written by Michael Hudson himself. Everything is connected, when we talk about the importance of the petrol-dollar, we are not trying to isolate things, it is about seeing all the picture.

            The US famously bombed iraq and lybia precisely for trying to move away from the petro-dollar ffs.

              • 小莱卡English
                2·
                2 months ago

                My question is, what does that have to do with challenging the dominant position of the dollar?

                The sum of these quantitative victories, however small and insignificant you think they are, is what leads to qualitative changes. Dedollarization is a process.

        • 小莱卡English
          9·
          2 months ago

          Yea the entire thing boils down to “the USD is to big to fail”.

          • 小莱卡English
            2·
            2 months ago

            Alternatives can be developed, this there is no alternative! speech you and liberals at NC are repeating is stupid and frankly racist. The people at BRICS know what they’re doing.

              • 小莱卡English
                1·
                2 months ago

                Look i don’t have an insider in BRICS so i can’t answer these questions, but it would be absurd to think that the group is just aesthetics. You can make sure that the alternatives are being developed.

      • zephyreks [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        I don’t think China’s goal has ever been financialization. Doctrine treats excess financialization like a cancer that inhibits progress towards socialism.

        The solution is really a move towards increased currency independence through something like mBridge - by facilitating transactions in local currencies, it increases efficiency in financial markets and makes a single reserve currency more difficult to justify.

        Edit: from the BRICS side, this is the only solution. India will never support a reserve currency that India does not have an outsized influence on, and neither will China.

    • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      22·
      2 months ago

      Well, Saudi riyal is still pegged (hyperflush) to the dollar just like it before.

      I believe that US Dollar decline will be much slower happening over next 1-2 decades instead of years.

        • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          9·
          2 months ago

          China and US is a two way relationship. China gives US things (cars, solar panels, electronics etc) in return for Dollars which previously they could use to import but is getting less and less useful since they have accumulated trillions of it and with sanctions on Russia and Iran but they still have gulf states.

          If US were to escalate the trade war, US loses access to the Chinese goods (which will lead to a decline in American standard of living if Government doesn’t increase domestic production). Given that American government is incompetent I don’t think there will be much central planning so it has to be less goods.

          But it’ll also hurt China because they will have to find some place else to sell goods to or increase domestic consumption. It can increase spending and sell to its own people (which it has been doing more since 2010s) but it can’t do it instantly because that would push the economy beyond capacity (atleast in some sectors).

          That’s why I think it’ll be a slow decline of the dollar. Or, US could do something stupid, ban all trade with China which would be a disaster and people would revolt.

            • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
              7·
              2 months ago

              The US doesn’t lose access to Chinese goods, they simply get to the US through a longer route via third party countries.

              This was what everyone thought would happen to Russia if the US and EU sanction them, but in the end Western goods still end up in Russia.

              Yeah this is definitely true for US imports from China but I would bet the reverse wont be true for American exports to China when it is now able to manufacture their own competitive alternatives.

              I always thought and I still believe part of the US caution towards China is the fact big tech still have a significant share of their profits in China, for Apple it is like 20% of their entire bottom line is from China. This share can’t be recovered anywhere else since overall global poverty is increasing. Even if Marx wasn’t correct about the falling rate of profit, US tech megacorps can’t afford to lose access to the CN market.

              It is all happening as we watch, Huawei sales are growing massively while Apple is stagnating. How many Pelosis are heavily invested in Apple stocks right now? Which is why this is among other reasons they are attempting to isolate China from chip production and create a permanent dependency.

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          6·
          2 months ago

          Wen Tiejun thinks that a hot war is pretty much inevitable once the trade war/tech sanctions against China escalates into a full fledged financial war. The contradictions of finance capitalism need to be “resolved” somehow, and war seems to be the path of least resistance.

          Europe isn’t joining that. And the US isn’t doing it if Europe isn’t joining it.

          All signs point to Europe turning to China as a means of escaping US vassalisation. The whole landmass is going to grow closer together and there’s shit all the US can do about it other than run their war games and cry about how they all come out as a big fat loss for themselves then do nothing.

            • zephyreks [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
              1·
              2 months ago

              If China figures out the scaling challenges with renewables (storage, etc.), it’s pretty easy to see a path where Europe flips entirely.

              Europe’s energy transition is the story that’s being overlooked because of their sudden loss of cheap gas.

      • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.netOPMEnglish
        10·
        2 months ago

        I believe that US Dollar decline will be much slower happening over next 1-2 decades instead of years.

        this is my take too.

        if you look at graphs of the GBP vs the dollar in terms of global debt, it took essentially the entire period of the 1914-1945 crisis for the dollar to supplant the sterling. If WW2 hadn’t broken out it’s not even clear if the dollar would have been in charge today, it was only WW2 which guaranteed it. That 30 years featured two of the largest wars humanity has ever fought with tens of millions dead, multiple empires collapsing or clearly on the road to collapse, and one of the greatest depressions and then booms in American history - that is what it took for the dollar to supplant the sterling. we aren’t gonna dethrone the dollar because of a conflict in Ukraine and like, some treasury bills business.

        if anybody is thinking “oh god, I hope the dollar can be dethroned before the next major crisis in the developing world…” then you are shit out of luck. in fact, we probably have at least 2-3 more major crises in the developing world before the dollar is gone. BRICS is gonna take at least a decade to rev up dedollarization plans and if we’re lucky, perhaps only a few tens of millions of people will die in massive (hopefully non-nuclear) wars over the next couple decades, though with climate change in the mix it might well be hundreds of millions. I expect to be firmly in middle age before I see the multilateral currency system overtake the dollar, it’s not happening by 2027 or whatever. whatever epic financial plans that Biden is coming up with are the early stages of the US attempting to maintain its dominance; the Operation Barbarossa of the coming war of hegemony.