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
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.
What a weekend it's been I had to count votes, not for the EU election, and there was the EU election that did a bunch a thing namely my favorite country to hate, Germany did a thing.
AfD won and is not the second largest political party, which most people paying attention doesn't come as a suprise since they've been polling really strong, however they did less than their normal polls only getting 16% instead of the 20% they polled in the recent couple rounds.
So were the polls wrong and in the upcoming elections AfD won't reach 20%? I don't think so, AfD is not exactly a 'EU-Aligned' party and I think quite a few AfD voters don't see the EU as legitimate and would probably not vote in an EU election. So they'll probably do even better in the upcoming state elections which I mean yeah germany is going full throttle fash now, they've been idling their fash engine but guess what germany is back to their old tricks.
Anyways since I am not a german I went to look for some people that are and I found them and translated them. Enjoy
I'm happy about the good result for Volt
. Hopefully there's enough for another seat for the pirates.
*In the Kremlin they are opening champagne bottles *
Because this is all russias fault not a single german is at fault here nope just russia puppeting poor innocent germany.
There's a couple fuck nazis which you know good but that's the lowest bar ever so let me give you another gem.
Am I just the Simpson meme or has a majority of the germans lost their minds? According to a poll in the Tagesschau many say that the greens don't care enough about the economy and not enough about future climate politics, when everything is the fault of Lindner (FDP so not greens) Habeck wanted to support the national economy through several ways and every time Lindner stops him with the national debt. The farmers lobby led the farmers protests which have close connections to the food industry, which is responsible for the low prices. And FDP as well as SPD let them selves get moved by the AfD on issues like migration but that's the fault of the greens? What's wrong with people? Are they dumb or something?
For those that do not understand anything the SPD (call themselves soc dem) the greens and the fdp (neoliberals) made a coalition and somehow someway only the policies that the fdp, a party that only has 5% of the votes by the way, go through everything else gets blocked somehow. So for the americans the FDP are you Joe Mansions your Kirsten Cinemas etc. the greens and the spd really want to do things but that darn FDP just stops them. Habeck is their green guy and hasn't been able to do anything at all which is really unfair I mean come on, and then people don't vote for the guy that doesn't do anything are they crazy? Oh also SPD and FDP do basically the AfDs migration policy and the greens are in a coalition with them so yes the greens also have fucking garbage politics this isn't hard.
Anyways don't worry the brightest german fedditor has the answer why people don't vote for the greens that don't do anything except be really enthusiastic about genocide and sending weapons to people can get blown up
That's right guys, gals and nonbinary pals it's the press' fault. Like don't get me wrong fuck right wing media but again if the so called left-wing parties did anything to materially make peoples lives better they wouldn't get fucking demolished like this, but I guess that's just not possible.
I've said it too many times but I will not stop saying it, deeply unserious country and it should be broken up in at least 10 smaller countries and best case scenario would be a hundred tiny german principalities that would make Charles V say "Das ist ein bisschen viel oder?"
Also I cleaned up the exhaust vent above my kitchen before I wrote this so imagine the most greased up guy ever writing this.
Every German politician for the past 8 months: "Germany has a problem with Islamists. Pro-Palestine protestors are antisemites and terrorist sympathizers."
Woke Leftlibs who usually vote succdem: "I find this rhetoric alienating. I will not vote for this party."
Chuds: "I agree. That's why I will vote for the fascists who will get rid of the muslims."