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.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Death to America
reverse extraterritoriality (intraterritoriality?), truly bold innovations coming from the state department now
Defense for Children International has received the autopsy of 17-year-old Palestinian-Brazilian dual national Walid Ahmad, the first child to die in Israeli prisons. Ahmad reportedly likely died from starvation, dehydration, and infections due to prolonged malnutrition and medical neglect.
Today’s videos from Russia’s special military operation.
Another collection of recent Russian drone strikes on Kiev regime military equipment: https://odysee.com/@Support4Z:b/%F0%9F%93%BD%EF%B8%8F-A-%F0%9F%87%AC%F0%9F%87%A7-%F0%9F%87%AB%F0%9F%87%B7,--Russian-FPV-drone-destroys-Ukrainian-Armed-Forces-logistics!:0
Russian drone destroys a Kiev regime T-72 tank in Kharkov oblast: https://news-pravda.com/world/2025/04/03/1204268.html
Surrendered Ukrainian soldier states that Western mercenaries would shoot them if they tried retreating: https://odysee.com/@Support4Z:b/%F0%9F%93%BD%EF%B8%8F-A-%F0%9F%87%AC%F0%9F%87%A7-%F0%9F%87%AB%F0%9F%87%B7,--THE-MERCENARIES-WERE-RIGHT-BEHIND-US!!:3
US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 21st night in a row, with two airstrikes reported in Saada Governorate, around an area known to contain underground facilities, east of Saada city.
Two statements by the Yemeni Armed Forces earlier today:
No ballistic missiles at Israel, just a long range Sayyad one way attack drone, called 'Yaffa" for this operation. The Shark F360 drone is a mix of a quadcopter and winged drone, to allow for vertical takeoff and landing. It's a pretty small fully electric drone about 1.75m long, with a wingspan of 3.6m. Wonder how one got into Yemen in the first place. Mossad or CIA agents?
The B-2s are operating in Yemen now, and we have uncensored satellite imagery of weapons loading taking place on the B-2s. I've updated my post on it here, with the uncensored imagery.
Anyone have any reading on South Sudan? Both on the current situation and generally. Seems like they’re headed into a civil war, and I haven’t seen any coverage on it, not even here which is odd.
If the Dems had a backbone, part of their Project 2029 platform would be threatening to do the full Venezuela on El Salvador unless they throw this guy into his own prison.
If Dems were 'nice' they would install a social democrat and provide Dollar aid and let them create their own jobs program. But they aren't nice.
That would not be good for the northern triangle. Bukele would be replaced with yet another right-winger because his actions on crime and immigrants are very popular.
Go full Venezuela and it creates a migrant crisis in Guatemala and Honduras. Before you know it there are now three conservatives worse than Buekele in control of each country in the region.
New banger from the armed wing of the PFLP
CW- dead Palestinians, adult and children
translation
🔴 Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades: — Delusional are those who thinks we are defeated... Resistance is not terrorism... — Notes: 0:00 - Treachery. Terrorism. Killing innocents. 0:05 - This world shamelessly crushes justice. 0:07 - However, deluded are those who think... 0:18 - ...that we can be defeated. 0:20 - Resistance is not terrorism. 0:21 - Resistance. Not compromise. No retreat. No surrender. 0:29 - And we will certainly be victorious.
NYT: U.S. Strikes in Yemen Burning Through Munitions With Limited Success
President Trump said this week that Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen have been “decimated by the relentless strikes” that he ordered beginning on March 15.
But that’s not what Pentagon and military officials are privately telling Congress and allied countries.
In closed briefings in recent days, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that there has been only limited success in destroying the Houthis’ vast, largely underground arsenal of missiles, drones and launchers, according to congressional aides and allies.
The officials briefed on confidential damage assessments say the bombing is consistently heavier than strikes conducted by the Biden administration, and much bigger than what the Defense Department has publicly described.
But Houthi fighters, known for their resiliency, have reinforced many of their bunkers and other targeted sites, frustrating the Americans’ ability to disrupt the militia’s missile attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea, according to three congressional and allied officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
In just three weeks, the Pentagon has used $200 million worth of munitions, in addition to the immense operational and personnel costs to deploy two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses to the Middle East, the officials said.
The total cost could be well over $1 billion by next week, and the Pentagon might soon need to request supplemental funds from Congress, one U.S. official said.
So many precision munitions are being used, especially advanced long-range ones, that some Pentagon contingency planners are growing concerned about overall Navy stocks and implications for any situation in which the United States would have to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China.
The U.S. strikes, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named Operation Rough Rider after the troops Theodore Roosevelt led in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, likely could continue for six months, officials said.
A senior Pentagon official late Thursday pushed back on the assessments described by the congressional and allied officials.
The senior official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said the airstrikes had exceeded their goal in the campaign’s initial phase, disrupting senior Houthi leaders’ ability to communicate, limiting the group’s response to a handful of ineffective counter strikes, and setting the conditions for subsequent phases, which he declined to discuss. “We’re on track,” the official said.
Someone is lying here to the NYT about how this bombing campaign is actually going. Based on what @MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net has been reporting, specifically on the latest and greatest bunker busters being dropped from B-2s, I suspect it's Trump/Pentagon officials, but there's money and political implications to all of this. Depleting US munitions means more money for defense contractors. All I can say for sure is that Yemen continues to learn why Americans don't have healthcare.
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".
Luckily we are years away from having the arms production capabilities to replenish what we've lost in Ukraine, Israel and our other proxies. The arms industry is salivating at the money they will get to replace what is lost, and half of that will probably end up in foreign bank accounts of arms executives, the rest going into building factories and increasing production capacity that will never be completed. Yemen will still exist long after the missiles run out
I’m shocked they didn’t just turn off the stock market today. Wonderful how you can do that you know, just turn off the stock market and pretend like it makes any sense whatsoever
A bit like when 'the queen' died, and governments in the 'commonwealth' gave everyone a day off work to be sad or whatever
cant believe i heard someone talk about how the corronation was going to be 'once in a lifetime', as if charlie boy has anytime to live at all
sorry, i digress
Why don't they turn it off and on until it's working correctly?
Everything’s computer
member gamestonk when they just reversed trading and stopped retail purchases while still allowing retail sales, something never before done in history?
Oh boy do I
MattChristmanTweet.txt
Very serious economic basis
An update on the bombings of the "Amad Tunnels" in Yemen. Satellite imagery has been released, showing a 100m/330ft+ long gash in a mountain in the Amad area. Only one aircraft in the US fleet carries a bomb big enough to make such a huge hole in a mountain, the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber with the GBU-57 MOP bomb. So B-2s are being used in Yemen now. This also explains the censored satellite imagery of the B-2s at Diego Garcia, they were being worked on for missions. Expect official confirmation soon from US news sources.
Twitter link showing the satellite imagery
Image of the 100+m gash:
How the site usually looks like on Google Maps, the gash would be just below the pin. You can also see the tunnel entrances along the main road:
Attempt to provide a measurement for context:
Official confirmation just in from CNN. Abdul Malik al-Houthi (the leader of the Ansarallah/Houthi movement) also commented on the use of B-2s in his latest speech.
B-2 bombers out of Diego Garcia are also being used against the Houthis, and an additional aircraft carrier as well as several fighter squadrons and air defense systems will soon be moved into the Central Command region, defense officials said this week.
The CNN article makes an error in munitions use though, the US Navy is using SLAM-ER cruise missiles, not JASSM cruise missiles.
More confirmation: the uncensored satellite imagery of the B-2s at Diego Garcia has been released, weapons loading in progress:
~~Given that the bombing of the Amad Tunnels took place on the morning of April 1st, Rybar were correct in their statement about B-2 bombers being used in Yemen.~~
Just checked, Rybar said the bombings tool place during March 29-30, a bit early.
In assessing the military impact of the US campaign, I'd say that the US has stopped Ansarallah from launching ballistic missiles at Israel for now, countered the unmanned aerial systems (cruise missiles and drones) threat with new weaponry and tactics, and suppressed their air defences to some extent, but Ansarallah are still able to shoot down slow flying drones like the MQ-9 Reaper, and Anti Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) capability appears to remain intact, given that the US Navy Carrier Strike Group is not coming within 700km of Yemen. As long as Ansarallah have ASBM capability, they can blockade the Red Sea. This a key capability that Ansarallah cannot allow to be degraded or lost. It's the backbone of their ability to carry out naval blockades. Ansarallah are set to unveil a new variant of their "Red Sea" missile based off of Iranian artillery rockets (so around 140km range) just for this purpose.
All in all this is another warning shot to Iran, the US just put a 400ft long crater in a mountainous bunker in Yemen. The GBU-57 MOP is a serious threat to underground facilities. I did a post on it here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2xey4m2ygo reform party member kicked out for calling Jimmy Savile a working class hero, and he looks just like you'd think
Dow is now down ~~YTD~~ for the last year
even worse, that graph looks like it shows its down from 1 whole year, so since last April.
I'm seeing it down almost 9% since the start of this year
edit: Seeing Amerikkkas hubris tank the global economy is funny and all, but my tax-free savings account is down hundreds 
not too late to swap your accounts to bonds
The market is down 10% it is too late. Just keep it where it's at
That’s assuming it’s done sliding
Agreed. Now is not the time to be engaging in market speculation comrades, if you have money tied up in the mystical finances, best thing to do is just try not to think about it for a few years
I may have misunderstood what year to date means 
Thank you for the correction.