Over the last week, Sri Lanka has been hit by their worst national natural disaster since the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. Over 2 million people (about 10% of the population) were affected; the death toll is currently climbing past 600; nearly a hundred thousand homes have been damaged or destroyed, transport infrastructure is heavily damaged; industry has been damaged; and farmland has been flooded. The cost of damage so far looks to be about $7 billion, which is more than the combined budget spent on healthcare and education in Sri Lanka.
While there is plenty to say meteorologically about how this yet another concerning escalation as a result of climate change (Sri Lanka does experience cyclones, but they are usually significantly weaker than this), it’s important to note that such disasters are, to at least a certain extent, able to warned about and their impacts somewhat mitigated. However, this requires both access to early detection and warning equipment, and an economy in which development is widespread - in this case, particularly in the construction of drainage systems and regulated construction, which has not generally occurred.
The IMF, on its 17th program with Sri Lanka, is doing its utmost to prevent such an economy from developing, as they instead promote reductions in public investment. On top of this, the rebuilding effort for Sri Lanka is already being planned and funded, and such donors include, of course, many Sri Lankan oligarchs, who will rebuild the damaged portions of the country yet further according to their visions, while sidelining the working class.
Perhaps neoliberalism’s decay into its eventual death occurring concurrently into the gradual intensification of climate change and renewed wars signifies the rise of the era of disaster capitalism.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
In US military movements in the build-up against Venezuela. F-35A fighters from the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing are in the process of being forward deployed to Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, with logistics flights taking place, the F-35As haven’t moved yet. This is notable as the exact same unit was forward deployed to the Middle East only a few days before US strikes on Iran. (This does not mean military action is imminent, just notable). Expect a Bernie Sanders statement about “no war in Venezuela” soon, probably once the F-35As start moving.
Source
Why deploy F-35As when 10x F-35Bs are already operating in Puerto Rico? The F-35A offers a couple of advantages: a larger combat radius due to the lift fan from the B model being replaced by an internal fuel tank, and the A model’s ability to carry 2000lb class Mk-84 bombs internally, like GBU-31 JDAMs equipped with BLU-109 bunker buster/penetrator warheads. The F-35B can only carry 1000lb class Mk-83 bombs internally. The F-35A can refuel faster in the air from tankers, boom refueling on the A vs probe and drogue for the B, though the difference is minimal for fighter jets. Also, the deck of the USS Iwo Jima is currently empty/clear. If the F-35Bs, with their Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) capability are deployed to the Iwo Jima to act as a mini aircraft carrier, Puerto Rico will still have F-35As available.
Wait, sorry, that was the wrong salute emoji.
comrade bernie will hold the imeprialists to account as he looks really grumpy as he abstains on the vote to launch maduro’s severed head into geostationary orbit above Caracas.
American hexbears, how is the democrat stablishment reacting to this continuous one-sided escalations? You’d think that being on the brink of a war would be in anyone’s “important subjects we should talk about” shelf
I forget the context now, but I remember democrat establishment already basically told its members not to push against this stuff because they don’t want to look like the “support maduro” who is “unpopular” (they mean in the american media). The only kind of reaction has been about the egregious war crimes they feel might leave a high profile administrator (hegseth, trump) in some kind of legal jeopardy or might allow them to run endless hearings to keep it in the headlines. This is the perfect strategy for them because they actually don’t care about invading vzla or might support it, but their base doesn’t- however, this gives them the opportunity to opportunistically attack the Trump administration in a symbolic way, that likely won’t actually interfere with the policy itself. They are probably fine with it as long as Trump takes the heat from any fallout