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.

  • Droplet [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    251·
    15 days ago

    Completely meaningless. Even if the Saudis sell their oil in other currencies, it’s still indexed in USD, so nothing’s really changed, not to mention that oil trade represents only a minor fraction of USD usage which encompasses not just trade but deep investment and financing all across the world as well.

    Also, anything that talks about Bitcoin or gold de-throning the dollar is a scam. That’s not how the global financial system works and so, part with your money at your own risk.

    This 2022 article from Naked Capitalism is still one of the simplest introductions into why it is so difficult to de-throne the dollar, which concludes with:

    So the most likely outcome is we have to wait either for a monster dollar crisis, which BTW does not mean any successor regime will be ready for prime time, or for China to be willing to accept the cost of having at least a somewhat financialized economy (reasonably deep and active trading markets). I don’t see that happening soon.

    There was a window of opportunity during late 2022 when high interest rates created a global dollar liquidity drain, during which the shortage of dollar could have been exploited aggressively by BRICS/China, but that opportunity has now passed since all the short term treasury bills have matured and the Biden administration is now actively pumping out hundreds of billions of dollars in the guise of “foreign aid” to flood the world with dollars once more.

    EDIT: just checked the NC article comment section. lmao @SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net asked a question in the comment section, which Yves answered! Brings back memories!

    • 小莱卡English
      14·
      15 days 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

      • Droplet [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        7·
        15 days ago

        I have said many times, these people don’t understand how money and how the global financial system works.

        Please read Michael Hudson’s Super Imperialism, which became the manual for the State Department to do imperialism and get “free ride” all across the world. Hudson laid out exactly how dollar hegemony is supposed to work, and why the so-called “petro-dollar” has little to no significance on the dominant role of the dollar.

        To understand how money works, start with David Graeber’s Debt: the First 5000 Years.

        There is so much neoclassical myth about money that leftists anti-imperialists keep perpetuating, it’s actually driving me crazy.

        • 小莱卡English
          4·
          15 days 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.

          • Droplet [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            1·
            15 days ago

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

            Hudson was talking about countries bypassing using the dollars for their trade so they cannot be seized by the US banking system like what happened to Russia, Venezuela and Afghanistan.

            Again, you need to read Super Imperialism to understand what Hudson was saying here: the US treasuries are just “sinks” to absorb all the surplus dollars the US had spent overseas. So when the US spent billions and billions of dollars on building military bases overseas (and all the expenditures of the US military overseas), a lot of those dollars entered the world’s economy from US soldiers/military spending their dollars in those regions. The local vendors earned those dollars, then stored it in their banks, and the banks then turned the dollars to the central banks of their own countries. The central banks then use the very same dollars to import stuff in USD (say, purchase oil from Saudi Arabia), and for the remaining surplus, the central banks used to purchased US treasuries, because there is nowhere else to go, effectively completing the circular flow of the US dollar spending -> overseas economy -> back to US treasuries. This allows the US to spend unlimited amount of money overseas to build up their military bases. Similarly, Saudi Arabia also used the USD earnings from oil sale to purchase US treasuries.

            This is what Hudson meant by the foreign exchange paying for US military spending overseas. In the case of “petro dollar”, the only thing that is changed is that China is not actively using returning the dollars they had earned to the US treasuries to “fund US military spending” (in quotation marks because you really have to think of the US treasuries as a “sink”, it doesn’t really need others to “pay” for it since the US government creates its own money).

            Here’s what Michael Hudson said about what I have been saying above, literally linking to the same NC article I just posted:

            KF: So what is happening in terms of the percentages of trades? In terms of these bilateral deals, how much trade has moved away from the USD to these more multilateral currency exchanges?

            MH: Well, even when trade moves into foreign currencies, it’s still related to the U.S. price of goods and services. [So, really, they’re just] using non-U.S. banks and trading in their own currency, but it’s still based on the USD, and USD pricing. Payments in many cases have to be made by using an intermediary or at least a reference point to the USD, so that’s the problem that Asian countries have to face. I think in the last week or so Yves Smith on [naked capitalism] had a whole series of articles3 saying how really difficult it is [for other countries] to have an alternative [transactions currency] to the USD. You can’t simply just bypass it when the basic pricing of so many raw materials [is denominated] in U.S dollars.

            https://michael-hudson.com/2023/01/systemic-sponsors-of-self-interest/

            • 小莱卡English
              2·
              14 days 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.

    • HexBroke [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      13·
      15 days ago

      I think YS’ views are quite coloured by her experiences

      For example:

      Even though the dollar is set to lose its dominant position due to the US no longer being the top economic dog (and the US giving other countries ample incentive to move away via our abuse of the power of controlling the dollar payments system), monetary regime changes take a very long time to play out. It took forty years, including two world wars and a global depression, to dethrone pound sterling. And now we have more significant frictions to changing monetary regimes in the form of the amount of computer coding behind current systems, and the depth and complexity of dollar financial instruments and investment vehicles.

      I am not convinced that the depth and complexity of US financial vehicles is necessary or beneficial for a reserve currency.

      Then there are aspects that are completely ahistorical:

      A successor reserve currency would need to have a large enough economy with capital markets open to foreign investors with perceived-to-be-fair trading markets and well-regulated institutions.

      China would also need open capital markets, transparent regulation, credible measures to prevent bad practices like front running and insider trading, and at least a reasonable prospect that foreign investors who got into disputes with their bank or broker would be treated not much worse than locals when seeking recourse (as in officials and courts need to realize that giving foreigners too much of the short shrift is bad for business).

      The US did not become the economic hegemon it is because of open capital markets, transparent regulation and credible market regulation.

      • 小莱卡English
        9·
        15 days ago

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

      • Droplet [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        6·
        15 days ago

        You’ve got it backwards. The US found a “cheat code” and used it to penetrate every segment of the global financial system until it became irreplaceable, often with the consent from the rest of the world!

        Michael Hudson laid out exactly how all these work in his book Super Imperialism (first published in 1972), which the State Department bought thousands of copies to teach themselves how to do imperialism.

          • Droplet [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            1·
            14 days ago

            The US did not become the economic hegemon it is because of open capital markets, transparent regulation and credible market regulation.

            You are correct, but the logic is reversed. The US dollar was able to penetrate and pervade through the global economy because it has found a cheat code to print unlimited amount of money (read Super Imperialism) and that allowed it to set up global financial institutions and shape the rules according to its interests (i.e. open capital markets, transparency etc.) so everyone else has to follow the rules that the US has set up in order to participate in the game.

            What happens when someone cheats in a game but they also happen to be the host of the server who set the rules? The only way out is for everyone to not play with this person, leave the room and set up your own server and your own rules. That’s what de-dollarization means.

        • 小莱卡English
          2·
          15 days 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.

          • Droplet [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            1·
            14 days ago

            Of course alternatives can be developed, but where is it? I have been one of the first to talk about de-dollarization on Hexbear since the Ukraine war started, and I have been waiting two years for an alternative to be unveiled.

            What is the architecture? What is the mechanism? We need all these information to understand if the new alternative can effective hold its own weight against the dollar.

            So far, we don’t even have the slightest hint of what the BRICS is planning (maybe they’ll surprise us in the BRICS summit this summer, but don’t hold your breath about it).

            Also, trust me when I say the neoclassical Chicago school trained economists in BRICS NDB absolutely do not know what they’re doing, as evident by their continual insistent on lending out dollars for BRICS loans. You need Marxist or at least MMT-literate economists to do the job.

            • 小莱卡English
              1·
              14 days 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·
      13 days 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.