this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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Bulletins and News Discussion from March 31st to April 6th, 2025 - Magnitude 7.7 Earthquake Hits Mandalay
(hexbear.net)
Image of destruction in Mandalay, Myanmar, from Al Jazeera.
As if the ongoing civil war wasn't enough, Myanmar has now been struck by a very powerful earthquake, resulting in 2000 deaths and thousands more injured as of the time of writing. Estimates are that the death toll could reach 10,000. Infrastructure like roads and bridges are damaged, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. The earthquake struck during Eid prayers, resulting in even higher casualties as several mosques collapsed. 20 million people already required humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, and now the situation there will be even worse. International rescue teams have rushed into the country, and aid is being raised, though with USAID experiencing the... changes that it is, the United States will be of even more limited help than usual. So far, China has sent $14 million, while USAID has supplied $2 million. In Thailand, the death toll seems considerably lower, though there has still been significant damage; a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.
Myanmar is located very close to the boundary between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In particular, the country is divided in two by the north-south oriented Sagaing fault. This fault is typically strike-slip; that is, each side of the fault moves horizontally past each other. The earthquake's depth was 10 kilometers, which is pretty shallow, and its proximity to the surface amplified the felt force of the earthquake. Additionally, the soft soil in this region tends to further amplify seismic waves through a process called liquefaction. Combine all this with the lackluster building codes due to many years of impoverishment and civil wars, and this explains why the death toll, and the expense to the country in general to repair damage, will probably be extremely high.
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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.
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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
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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.
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The thing with the munitions is someone at CNN heard from a DoD official that F-18s were launching cruise missiles, and then incorrectly made the assumption that these were JASSM cruise missiles, while in reality they are SLAM-ER cruise missiles. There been no pictures of F-18s with JASSM missiles equipped, and such a long range missile from an air launched platform makes little sense given that the Carrier Strike Group is around 800km from Yemen at most times.
Yes the US Navy has been using a ton of long range precision weapons for this campaign to minimise risk, and yes they are quite expensive. Each AGM-154C JSOW 1000lb shaped charge glide bomb (the most commonly used weapon, with some F-18s launching 4 per sortie) costs $720K (130km range), each modernised AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER ATA cruise missile costs between $1.5-3 million (270km range), each GBU-53/B Stormreaker 250lb glide bomb costs $220K (110km range against stationary targets, 75km range against moving targets), each Tomahawk cruise missile costs $2 million. Each AGM-88E AARGM HARM fired by an EA-18G Growler to suppress or destroy a SAM site in Yemen costs $870K (148 km range).
The big cost though, is the B-2 deployment. Each GBU-57 MOP bomb is around $20 million (yes that's the actual cost, that's not a typo) once factoring in the total program research cost (each bomb costs $3.5 million just to build). Cost per flight hour is around $200k in today's money per B-2. Given the B-2s have started missions on the early morning hours of April 1st, this explains the ballooning costs. The deployment of a second aircraft carrier is also significant.
EA-18G Growler armed with AGM-88E AARGMs:
F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet armed with GBU-53/B Stormreakers:
F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets armed with AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER ATA cruise missiles, in the air and on the carrier:
F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet armed with AGM-154C JSOWs:
Sorry, it it wasn't clear, I was referencing your comments about the GBU-57 and the B-2s because, if they are breaking those out, then I suspect that, contrary to what the unnamed Pentagon officials said, things likely haven't gone "better than expected" in the initial phases, and that the reporting about the cost of all this by the NYT is likely correct.
It really depends what is meant by "initial phases". During the first night where the US caught Ansarallah by suprise, yes they managed to kill some important people, acknowledged by pro Ansarallah Yemeni media themselves. The APKWS guided rockets appear to be successful in stopping drone and cruise missile attacks on US Navy warships. I think, and you'll probably think this as well, that calling the first few hours of strikes an "initial phase" is stretching the truth quite a bit. But media outlets like the NYT, Atlantic, CNN, etc, love to stretch the truth.
But after that, everyone important to Ansarallah was likely sent to the underground facilities, and fighter jets like the F-18 don't exactly carry bombs big enough to make a 400ft wide crater in a mountain. This is the problem the Saudi coalition faced for over a decade. So during that phase, I think the death toll for Ansarallah figures from airstrikes went from 37 to 41. Not exactly a resounding success, only managing to get 4 people in over two weeks. The only objective accomplished during this phase has been stopping the ballistic missile launches towards Israel. Otherwise, Ansarallah military capabilities went unchanged. ASBM capability remained intact, their air defences can still take out MQ-9 Reaper drones, and the leadership regrouped. So yeah, that phase of strikes didn't accomplish much aside from protecting Israel, which is pretty unsuccessful if the goal is to stop the naval blockade of the Red Sea by Ansarallah. So not exactly a successful "initial phase".
The B-2s have changed things somewhat, now the US can target underground facilities and Ansarallah have stopped releasing casualty figures, and have cracked down on the sharing of footage and information on US airstrikes. The US is also conducting a targeted assassination campaign now, bombing vehicles with suspected Ansarallah senior members in them. Though I don't think that wil do much, aside from restricting their movement. Maybe this is meant by "setting the conditions for subsequent phaess".