Image is sourced from this article.
Those who were around in the early days of the news megathread may remember Pedro Castillo, the left-leaning leader of Peru who was deposed in December 2022. He was replaced by Dina Boluarte, the first woman to be President of Peru, who described herself as a progressive but afterwards routinely sided with Peruvian conservatives and American interests. To say she was unpopular is an understatement of titanic proportions - she descended to such lows that she was, at one point, the single most unpopular leader on the planet. As with most deeply unpopular leaders that side with the West, she kept power for a bafflingly long time.
However, on October 10th, after a period of protests against the government, she was impeached and removed by Peru’s Congress in a unanimous vote. José Jerí was sworn in as the new President, who was previously the President of the Congress and is a member of a centrist Peruvian party. The government is trying the classic strategy: keep doing the same thing as before, and sacrifice an unpopular figure - here, Boluarte - in the hopes that this appeases the crowd.
Is this strategy working? It doesn’t really seem to be - protests are not only continuing, but strengthening, as it is clear that neoliberalism will not reformed and the brutality by police will not stop (there was very recently a high-profile case in which a musician, Mauricio Ruiz, was murdered). Controversies surrounding Jerí, including allegations of SA, are already being reported. If Jerí is deposed, the next person in line to try their hand at ruling will be the former army general Roberto Chiabra, who would be the ninth President in less than a decade.
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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.
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.
Russia has started using a new 1000lb/500kg glide bomb kit in Ukraine, that is significantly more refined than previous glide kits, and takes heavy inspiration from the Israeli SPICE-1000 manufactured by Rafael. In fact, the new Russian glide bomb is so similar, that I bet most won’t be able to tell the difference between wreckage of it and a SPICE-1000. Which is which?
1:
2:
spoiler
Top image (1) is the Israeli SPICE-1000, bottom image collage (2) is the new Russian glide bomb.
This new Russian glide bomb is unpowered, and is set to offer a range of over 100km, almost double the range of the more crude previous Russian designs. The SPICE-1000 has a range of 125km according to Rafael, to give an estimate of a similar class of weapon. There are rumours of the existence of a rocket or turbine assisted version of this new Russian glide bomb, with ranges approaching 200km, but no images of that yet, just rumours.
One key difference between the new Russian glide bomb and the SPICE-1000 is guidance. SPICE-1000 features an electro optical seeker (camera in everyday English), in the nose to allow for accurate strikes even when satellite navigation is jammed or spoofed, and to allow for different approach angles/azimuths, or even human in the loop guidance if there is a datalink between the weapon and the aircraft firing it. The new Russian glide bomb does not have this, no optical seeker, it still relies purely on satellite and inertial navigation to hit static targets.
Photograph of the new Russian glide bombs:
SPICE-1000s from a similar angle:
500kg bomb!
I googled and apparently this is a videogame reference (Helldivers) . These ones fly over 100km/65mi, so you won’t be seeing the launch aircraft and it will take some time to arrive (the videogame one is almost instant from what I saw on YouTube) if you call in air support in a ditch in Ukraine.
Also I remember something about this videogame reference being engraved on the bullets used in the Charlie Kirk assasination.
What makes this better? Just aerodynamic improvements?
Yeah the aerodynamic improvements allow for a much longer range. If you compare this style of longer, sleeker folding wings and the conical tail section vs previous Russian glide bomb kits, the difference is obvious, you don’t need much knowledge of aerodynamics to see it.
The previous designs appear crude by comparison, for example:
The folding wing mount doesn’t conform to the shape of the bomb and extends as a straight line for the whole length of the bomb, the mini vertical stabilisers are welded or glued onto the bomb itself. This is not to mock these earlier designs, they served their purpose well.