Image is of the Power of Siberia natural gas pipeline, which transports gas from Russia to China. This isn’t an oil pipeline (such as the ESPO) but I thought it looked cool. Source here.
Trump has recently proposed a 500% tariff on goods from countries that trade with Russia, including India and China (who buy ~70% of Russia’s oil output), as well as a 10% additional tariff on goods from countries that “align themselves with BRICS.” Considering that China is the largest trading partner of most of the countries on the planet at this point, and India and Brazil are reasonably strong regional players, I’m not sure what exactly “alignment” means, but it could be pretty bad.
Sanctions and tariffs on Russian products have been difficult to achieve in practice. It’s easy to write an order to sanction Russia, but much harder to actually enforce these sorts of things because of, for example, the Russian shadow oil fleet, or countries like Kazakhstan acting as covert middlemen (well, as covert as a very sudden oil export boom can be).
Considering that China was pretty soundly victorious last time around, I’m cautiously optimistic, especially because China and India just outright cutting off their supply of energy and fuel would be catastrophic to them (and if Iran and Israel go to war again any time in the near future, it’ll only be more disastrous). Barring China and India kowtowing to Trump and copying Europe vis-a-vis Nordstream 2 (which isn’t impossible, I suppose), the question is whether China and India will appear to accede to these commands while secretly continuing trade with Russia through middlemen, or if they will be more defiant in the face of American pressure.
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.
America has Aknowledged the Drone threat
It has Analyised the Drone Threat -
and it has reacted to the Drone threat with a new field Manual.
Good Riddance Drone threat . was nice knowing you , but its looks like your time is ending now.
America is a global embarrassment. Just
Weird how making these LLMs ‘anti-woke’ results in it Hitlerposting.
wonder whySo umm, how are things with Iran? Is there still a ceasefire and is that sticking for now?
Putin urges Iran to take “zero enrichment” nuclear deal with U.S., sources say https://www.axios.com/2025/07/12/putin-iran-nuclear-deal-uranium-enrichment
According to this Putin has told Trump, Macron, and Iranian officials he supports a nuclear deal banning uranium enrichment in Iran.
As an outside observer, it sorta feels like after the useless “no more kings” protests that achieved absolutely nothing, and months of similar movements, combined with sporadic and more effective violent resistance being seen in some areas, that a large mass of people are getting very radicalised and seeing things clearly around what’s going to need to happen to stop ICE. Every thread about it on /r/news seems to be dominated by liberals openly stating that violent resistance is necessary and good, and there’s far less of the “you’re giving them an excuse to crack down!!!” type shit flying around. This wasn’t the case even a couple of months ago. The Democratic base is getting to the point where their calls for blood are making it into national news, to the horror of their leadership. Is this an accurate assessment?
Trump put tariffs on Canada, Mexico and the European Union. And they all negotiate with him beforehand. Trump accused Canada of worsening the opioid addiction epidemic in the US and taxed the country +35%; Mexico too, Trump accused Mexico of collaborating with its drug cartels to target the US. +30% tariffs. Meanwhile, he taxed Europe +30% for not opening businesses in the US.
- Telegram
One of the most humorous fallouts of Trump’s “get Bolsonaro out of jail” 50% tariff to hit the Brazilian media so far, involves a strip club in Fortaleza, which is now charging a 50% extra surcharge for American sex tourists. FAFO.
China has sent a direct message to the US: “tariffs are not weapons of intimidation”. Spokeswoman Mao Ning said that tariffs should not be used as a form of coercion or interference in internal affairs. The statement was made on the 11th at a press conference in Beijing. Beijing reacted by saying that “sovereign equality and non-interference” are UN principles and that trade wars benefit no one. The criticism also targets the threat of a surcharge against countries aligned with the BRICS. At a meeting in ASEAN, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that American tariffs are trying to prevent the growth of countries in Southeast Asia. Cambodia, which was slapped with a 36% tariff, was cited as an example of Washington’s pressure.
Russia also defended Brazil and took a swipe at the US. A day after Trump announced a 50% surcharge on Brazilian products, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Serguei Riabkov, suggested that the BRICS could expand even further According to Riabkov, partner countries such as Bolivia, Cuba, Malaysia, Vietnam and others can bring “added value” to the bloc and strengthen the multilateral front. The speech was seen as a diplomatic response to US tariffs, which are trying to isolate Brazil and attack the BRICS for geopolitical reasons. With the bloc more united, Brazil gains support against US blackmail.
- Telegram
^Lebanon faces existential threat unless it addresses Hezbollah weapons, US envoy warns^
https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2025/07/11/tom-barrack-lebanon-hezbollah/
The Guardian: Farm worker dies a day after chaotic immigration raid at California farm
On June 10th, during violent immigration raids at two farm sites in Carpinteria and Camarillo, California, several workers were critically injured and one, Jaime Alanis, has died as a result of injuries sustained. Elizabeth Strater, national vice-president of the United Farm Workers, said Alanis was injured after a 30ft fall from a building during the raid. I haven’t yet seen the specific circumstances that led to his falling or the other injuries.
Community members and family of workers responded to the raid, federal vehicles were pelted with rocks and other objects, no reports of officers injured. Four US citizens were arrested for “assaulting or resisting officers”. Feds have offered a $50,000 reward for information of one person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents. In a statement regarding the incident yesterday, the United Farm Workers have said several US citizens remain unaccounted for.
The mother of an American worker said her son was held at the worksite for 11 hours and told her agents took workers’ cellphones to prevent them from calling family or filming and forced them to erase cellphone video of agents at the site.
The woman said her son told her agents marked the men’s hands with ink to distinguish their immigration status. She spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because she feared reprisals from the government.
I saw it reported by someone on bluesky that a community member detained without charges was not allowed to be released until they deleted footage of the raid from their phone.
“From economy of occupation to economy of genocide”
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese
