Image is from this Reuters article.
This week marks the one year anniversary of Honduras ceasing to recognize Taiwan and instead only recognizing China. Over that time period, China and Honduras have gone through several rounds of negotiating a free trade agreement, with trade expanding. Additionally, they have just signed a $275 million cooperation agreement, providing education infrastructure for Honduras.
The other major news piece relevant to Honduras is the battle against Prospera, a US-based crypto libertarian firm that sought to buy a private island in order to create an ancap paradise, in which Bitcoin would be legal tender. In 2022, Honduras killed the island’s special status that made the deal possible, and so Prospera is seeking $11 billion in compensation.
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 Honduras! 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.
Yes, the destruction would lead to world socialism and eventually galactic communism
/j
but honestly yes, if country tries to wipe another one with nuclear weapons then the country in question should retaliate, i dont think humanity would collectively learn from that mistake if the china doesnt strike back, the world saw the destruction 2 atomic bombs did and it didnt stop the developing and constructions of more bombs with even worse destructive ability, only way we learn is if we experience a nuclear war and if that means the extintion of Humanity then it was probably deserved for building such terrible weapons
Can’t say I disagree, but damn that’s a bleak view of humanity. Do you think the American people would rise up against the reckless use of nuclear weapons, thereby bringing down the global hegemonic empire for good? Not even a small chance?
it would be celebrated, valorized and enshrined as the capstone achievement of the american experiment within 3 generations
so long as the idea of america persists, any criticism of it will be met with ‘at least we got all the removed’
Damn, we are truly doomed then if the response to a nuclear genocide is one of celebration.
I suppose they will simply justify the action by equating China to the nuking of Japan nearly a century ago, which in many of their minds were fully justified.
sometimes it feels like the only difference between barbarism and civilization is what lies between negative and positive incentives
A lot of people here have deluded themselves into thinking that Americans are unfeeling orcs incapable of humanity.
Of course the general public wouldn’t be ok with genociding a billion people.
American propaganda is like that. The citizens who protest the violence don’t get to have a seat at the table.
nope, if they arent punished in any way i dont think they will learn anything, only reason they didnt let macarthur use nukes to stop the chinese advance in the korean war was the fear of escalating the war, Germans only revolted against the Kaiser when the empire was on its last legs with martial law, food shortages and other stuff after suffering from the horrors of world war 1 which they cheered and supported at the start
if the USA did that and it wasnt punished i dont think its people would just grow a concience and try to be better if anything i think they would become worst, after that great crime who could stop them from doing it again against those who cant strike back like Venezuela, Iran, etc.
I think this is why Israel ended up the way it did. Germany didn’t suffer enough for its crimes. zionists decided that if Germany can be forgiven in a few decades, Israel should do the same.
Not remotely, how many Americans cheered the end of covid restrictions when a million Americans were dead?