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.
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.
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.
Hey buddy, I heard you like posts… DM me to feature effort posts and good threads in the newsmega/newscomm here (including your own posts). Some great discussion this week. I’m grateful to be part of this community.
Please review and provide feedback on revised comm policy and rules
@xiaohongshu@hexbear.net with a real banger on upward social mobility or lack thereof for China’s Gen Z, the modern appeal of the Cultural Revolution, and CPC censorship Part 1 | Part 2. The subthread with @jack about modern youth Maoism is worthwhile as well.
@jack@hexbear.net on who owes the IMF money and the potential for China to upend the debt of the developing world. @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net has a good response here about the likelihood of China rugpulling the IMF/dollar denominated debt (he doubts it).
@seaposting@hexbear.net analyzing the class character of Malaysian resistance to Japanese occupation in WW2 and linguistic nuance around Malaysia’s national monument
Previous posts of the week: Oct 27 | Nov 3 | Nov 10 | Nov 17 | Nov 24 | Dec 1
Only been a day and there’s already a lot of great posts!
there are threads where Nothing Happens and days where GOOD posts are posted
On 10 December, the head of the Armed Forces of Honduras, Roosevelt Hernandez, said the military would recognize the election results and guarantee that it would be honored. The head of the CNE, Ana Paola Hall, asked for soldiers to be deployed outside buildings where ballots are being stored.
ANNOUNCED TODAY: The International Campaign to Free Lebanese Prisoners in Occupation Jails
There are currently at least 20 Lebanese prisoners held in the occupation prisons, as well as at least 1 Palestinian refugee to Lebanon. This number is neither complete nor certain, as the zionist occupation denies even the existence of the Lebanese prisoners – over half of them abducted after the ceasefire on 27 November 2024.
The International Campaign to Free Lebanese Prisoners from Occupation Prisons is an international response to the call of the Lebanese prisoners and their family members for worldwide support. Our campaign aims to build grassroots, popular and official solidarity to compel the freedom of all of the Lebanese prisoners in occupation prisons and to bring the ongoing zionist aggression on Lebanon to an end.
Main Page: https://freelebaneseprisoners.com/ Telegram: https://t.me/freelebaneseprisoners X: https://x.com/LebPrisoners Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freelebaneseprisoners/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FreeLebanesePrisoners
Haven’t seen it posted anywhere else, so I think it’s worth mentioning:
In response to the joint Chinese-Russian bomber patrol near Japan a few days ago, the US sent out some B-52 Stratofortress bombers to do an exercise around Japan, with US mid air refueling tankers taking off from Yokota, Japan to refuel the B-52s, who flew to Japan and then back to the USA. So both the US, and China-Russia, have now conducted bomber patrols around Japan.
“The tanker seized near Venezuela by the US is named Skipper and was carrying a false flag of nationality…It was seized because of its past links to smuggling illicit Iranian oil…although it was carrying Venezuelan oil” -NYT
“Asked what would happen to the oil on the seized oil tanker, President Trump said: ‘Well, we keep it, I guess.’” -NYT
Bolivian ex-President Arce detained by police, former minister says - Reuters
LA PAZ, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Bolivian ex-President Luis Arce, who left office last month, has been detained by police, a former member of his cabinet said on Wednesday.
Arce may have been called in to testify in relation to an investigation into alleged embezzlement that happened while he was serving as economy minister under former President Evo Morales, Maria Nela Prada, who served as minister to the presidency under Arce, told journalists.
“Of course he’s innocent,” Prada told journalists. “This has been a total abuse of power. We hope this case is not being taken as an opportunity to carry out political persecution.”
She added that he had not been notified or ordered to appear. “They simply took him,” she said.
Reuters was not able to independently verify Arce’s whereabouts.
Local media reported that a Bolivian specialized police force known as FELCC had detained Arce. FELCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The embezzlement investigation centers around alleged state disbursements from a fund to finance projects for Indigenous communities.
Investigators cited by local media on Wednesday said evidence presented in the case implicated Arce in the misappropriation of public resources.
The arrest comes less than two months after centrist candidate Rodrigo Paz won the October runoff election, ending nearly two decades of dominance by the leftist MAS party that Arce represented. Paz has pledged to tackle corruption within state institutions.
Himbo Jerome Powell lowered interest rates by a further 0.25, as expected. In his remarks he said that the Fed believes that job growth was overstated by around ~60k in the last three months. IIRC, the growth was already negative all those three months.
Evidence is growing that services inflation has come down, and goods inflation is entirely due to tariffs.
[edit] Money printer go brrrrrrrrr
The United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, two American sources told Reuters news agency. No further information is available about the circumstances of the seizure or the ship. The move comes amid a massive US military buildup in the region, including an aircraft carrier, fighter jets, and tens of thousands of troops.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the operation was led by the US Coast Guard. However, details such as the name of the tanker and the location of the interception were not disclosed. Venezuela exported more than 900,000 barrels of oil per day last month, the third-highest monthly average of the year so far. Even with growing pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Washington has not interfered with the country’s oil flow.
- Telegram
And in more fucked AI news CW CSAM https://www.404media.co/a-developer-accidentally-found-csam-in-ai-data-google-banned-him-for-it/
In
news:Provincial Antitrans law passes in Alberta following invocation of the notwithstanding clause
The set of three laws will police names and pronouns in school, ban transgender girls from participating in amateur female sports, and restrict gender-affirming health care for youth under 16.
The latter prohibits doctors from prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy for those under 16.
The notwithstanding clause is basically a mechanism that provincial and federal governments can use in Canada to pass temporary laws that are likely to violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and can’t be struck down by the courts for 5 years. It has been frequently used by Ontario, Quebec and Alberta governments in recent times. It’s almost always to do some explicitly reactionary shit.
It is the fourth time Smith’s UCP has invoked it this fall sitting. In late October, they used the clause to legally backstop a bill that overrode teachers’ rights and ordered them back to work to end a three-week-long provincewide strike.
The bill also imposed on 51,000 teachers a collective bargaining agreement they previously rejected.
Not surprising that the UCP sharpened their knives against the teachers first seeing as how they are the one union that has the power to affect indirectly all other workplaces.
The notwithstanding clause is basically a mechanism that provincial and federal governments can use in Canada to pass temporary laws that are likely to violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Damn let me guess it’s limited to only violating this rights given to citizens in this charter and can’t be used to say take private property from capitalists if a providence were to get super based in the future?
Or am I misunderstanding what’s in the charter?
The notwithstanding clause does not apply to the whole Charter, it can only apply to section 2 and sections 7-15: (source)
list of sections that the clause applies to
✖ S. 2: freedom of (a) conscience and religion, (b) thought, belief and expression, © peaceful assembly, and (d) association
✖ S. 7: right to life, liberty and security of the person
✖ S. 8: right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure
✖ S. 9: right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned
✖ S. 10: rights upon arrest or detention
✖ S. 11: rights upon being charged with an offence
✖ S. 12: right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual treatment or punishment
✖ S. 13: right against self-incrimination
✖ S. 14: right to an interpreter in legal proceedings
✖ S. 15: equality before and under the law, equal protection and benefit of the law
so yes generally the notwithstanding clause is used for reactionary nonsense but maybe exemption from S.8 could apply to seizure of assets
They used it over here to ban Muslim women to wear their hijab in public professions. They aim to do it too to preschool educators, while there is a crisis of places in nurseries and childcare places.
quebec collective “national” identity has put them in a good position to have more social safety net than the rest of Canada, but it sure is wedded to this kind of catholic/racist bullshit. it’s so fucking stupid, just chauvinism.
Thanks for sharing that! Absolutely wild that there’s a clause that explicitly says that many core rights can be annulled even if “temporary” if you just lose one election basically.
Feel like most western “democracies” try to be a little less obvious about how not guaranteed citizens rights are.
yeah while the settler colonial aspect of the Canadian nation is fairly old, the modern Canadian nation under the current constitution is young and in many ways not very federalized. related, so much of the “nation building” projects under discussion recently are things that support intra-province trade and more east-west integration.
The notwithstanding clause is basically a mechanism that provincial and federal governments can use in Canada to pass temporary laws that are likely to violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Look! I put it in the law that you can break the law if it’s to do fash shit! Don’t you just love the rules and norms?
yeah, it was a sop to the provinces when the canadian constitution was updated in 1982. a lot of provincial interests were concerned about federal overreach by having a federally imposed constitution that was always in effect, so the notwithstanding clause was a way to get them on board.
Alberta is such a reactionary shithole
Isn’t it just a matter of time before Doug Ford does similar?
Bolivia quickly returns to the path of neoliberalism
spoiler
The recently inaugurated Rodrigo Paz has wasted no time in embarking on his project to neoliberalize the Andean country. According to the president, Paz proposes cutting public spending by almost 30% in 2026, equivalent to 4 points of GDP.
In addition, he has proposed eliminating a series of taxes, especially for the wealthiest. One of these is a special tax on large fortunes, which Paz has promised to eliminate. The special tax is levied on those with fortunes of more than USD 4 million (less than 1% of the population) in a country where the basic salary is less than USD 400.
hate hate hate hate hate hate
Paz has announced the creation of at least ten “Truth Commissions”, which, he says, will be responsible for uncovering acts of corruption in public institutions during previous administrations.
Few public companies have been left out of this sort of “new neoliberal inquisition.” State-owned oil, road, telecommunications, lithium, and other companies will be investigated for alleged irregularities. Even before the investigations begin, Paz has already claimed that the alleged damage to the state amounts to nearly USD 15 billion.
They’re going to try to open up all these SOEs for US looting.
However, Paz will have to face an opposition that, despite losing the presidency, has not lost its significant capacity for mobilization and historical resistance to neoliberal measures. Furthermore, within his government, Paz has already experienced a recent rift with his vice president, Edman Lara, who called the president a “liar” and claimed that he is poorly advised in creating the “Truth Commissions”.
This, though, is a nice piece of info. VP and President at each other’s throat before taking office while the movement behind MAS remains active reinforces my take I’ve been saying all year: Bolivia’s right wing turn is not going to last even a single term.
Evo, as much as I love him, had proven to have had horrible political instincts. I hope you’re right about that single term. And if this forces MAS to find its own successor to Evo, then so be it. I just hope the Bolivian people do not have to suffer very much until that happens.
Evo, as much as I love him, had proven to have had horrible political instincts
I don’t think that’s fair. Yeah, MAS blew up at the end and his decisions played a major role. But he also built MAS from the ground up and turned into, I would argue, the most successful electoral socialist project in world history. Under his leadership, MAS took an incredibly poor neoliberal country and turned into a thriving socialist project over the course of 20 years.
the most successful electoral socialist project in world history
Highly disagree, that’s Chavez.
:this:
If you count the Bolivarian Revolution as electoral, then yes. But I think it’s a broad revolutionary movement with a major electoral component.
The unique conditions of Latin America can make for muddy distinctions between electoral and revolutionary movements.
Yeah, MAS blew up at the end and his decisions played a major role.
That’s pretty much all I mean. Everything else was a smashing success. But just looking at how stubbornly he held onto the leadership role in spite of all signals to the contrary, it’s hard not to lay the blame for the current situation at his feet IMO.
not very successful if his accomplishments can be annulled by one election cycle
-
That hasn’t happened yet
-
If it does, yeah, that’s the limits of electoral success. Doesn’t mean it’s worthless.
-
don forget there was also a rather violent coup, and the coup government took on massive imf loans in the few days/months they had power. I think the vacuum in leadership and the political discontinuity between Evo and Arce really cemented preexisting problems. Evo should have been cultivating a deeper leadership bench instead of fighting tooth and nail to become president again. He could have put forward a loyal person he trusted and stayed at the helm of MAS, but he simply didn’t and when he went into exile I wouldn’t be surprised if things were more decentralized and unmanaged- during a crisis like the coup, where some MAS leadership were being violently chased out or flogged by racist mobs, the best they could muster was Acre
Trumps memory is shot to shitTo confuse your enemy, you must first confuse yourself
Update on last nights/early morning post about increased electronic warfare and Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) support in the US military buildup against Venezuela:
The 6x EA-18G Growlers have arrived in Puerto Rico, and there is a mixed loadout of AN/ALQ-99 and AN/ALQ-249 Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) mid band jamming pods between the aircraft:
As for the point of the EA-18Gs when aircraft like the F-35 are already deployed: the F-35 can geolocate and detect hostile emitters (radars) using its AN/ASQ-239 Barracuda electronic warfare system, and then use it’s own AN/APG-81 AESA radar to spot jam said hostile emitter/radar, and employ weapons against it if necessary for a “hard kill”. However, the EA-18G, with it’s large external jamming pods, can provide broadband jamming over a wide range of frequencies and area if required, and the electronic warfare officer (EWO) in the backseat can adjust this to execute different kinds of “electronic attacks”. For example in Iraq and Afghanistan where there were no enemy air defences, EA-6Bs and EA-18Gs were used to set off IEDs (improvised explosive devices) from the air remotely, or jam the wireless detonation devices of the IEDs. As well as jamming cellphone communications and geolocating cellphones of whoever the US was up against.
Also, the jamming and “electronic noise” produced by the EA-18Gs can complement and enhance the F-35s stealth/very low observable capabilities, as the lower an object’s radar cross section is, the easier it is to obscure and hide from radars with jamming, and the jamming becomes much more effective and has a longer effective range. This is quite a poor analogy from a technical perspective, but it helps explain it. Think of a solider in forest camouflage standing in the open, this “solider” is the F-35. You should be able to spot said solider in the open. But now put this solider with his forest camouflage in a densely packed and overgrown forest. The solider would be almost impossible to spot. The “forest” here is the electronic warfare and jamming of the EA-18G, the “electronic noise” it produces gives the F-35 an environment to “hide” in.
China operates a similar model and synergy with the J-16D electronic warfare aircraft and the J-20 and J-35 stealth fighters.
Background on the Thailand-Cambodia War
This was written in the first bout of the war in July, but it’s heft corresponds to it’s insight, highlighting the political-economic history of the two respective countries which continuously remains relevant.
On the morning of July 25, war broke out between Cambodia and Thailand. On the surface, the conflict was sparked by a dispute over control of a UNESCO-listed heritage temple along the contested border. In reality, however, this war has little to do with the temple itself, nor is it truly a battle between two nations. Rather, it is the result of domestic political decisions on both sides, decisions that ultimately amount to a war on the poor, regardless of which side of the border they are from. In this conflict, peace is the only class based solution.
Selected excerpts
Yet this orchestrated persecution only confirms the Shinawatra family’s long-held conviction: Thailand’s establishment will tolerate pro-poor reforms only when it lacks the means to block them. Their strategy, enduring judicial harassment and public vilification while safeguarding incremental gains, is not weakness, but a pragmatic understanding of asymmetric political warfare.
For all its flaws, Pheu Thai remains the sole political vehicle capable of challenging Thailand’s military-monarchy complex, the entrenched power structure that has governed unchecked since the Cold War. This latest crisis is another battle in a century-long class war, one where every challenge to the elite status quo by the rural poor has been met with coups, judicial overthrows, or, as now, manufactured scandals. As of early July, the kingdom stands at another precipice: whether the remnants of the coalition can limp on, or whether the tanks will roll again in another coup remains uncertain, though the latter is increasingly likely as, on the 25th of July, the military declared martial law in 8 provinces near the border. What’s undeniable is that the real casualties will be, as always, Thailand’s working class.
It didn’t have to be this way. When Vietnamese forces, along with exiled Cambodians made up of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation liberated Phnom Penh in January 1979, they launched one of the most ambitious post-genocide reconstruction projects in modern history. Vietnamese engineers restored Phnom Penh’s water and electricity within weeks; medical teams vaccinated over two million Cambodians against polio and other diseases; and agricultural collectives revived food production. Assistance from Hanoi’s administration and the hard work of the Cambodian people laid foundations and literacy rates rose from 5% to 88% by 1987. A new generation of Cambodian teachers, doctors and civil servants, many trained in Vietnam, began rebuilding their shattered society…
…Cambodia is a product of UNTAC’s 90s “end of history” free market fever experiment. The state abdicated its role in providing social care and basic infrastructure to the market, supplemented by a vast international aid program (the largest ever in dollar amount at its time). Today though, as aid funds dry up, the state finds itself completely lacking the capacity to function. Very few levers are left for Hun Sen, and his successor son Hun Manet, to pull to address the country’s social and economic crises.
The “transition” from father to son merely formalises what UNTAC set in motion: capitalism without development and genocide survivors as disposable labour. Thirty years after the UN promised peace, Cambodia’s proletariat remains trapped between the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields and the sweatshops.
At the onset of this war Cambodia’s economy is hemorrhaging from self-inflicted wounds by the elite classes and global market shocks. The garment sector, 40% of GDP and a direct legacy of UNTAC’s sweatshop model, collapsed as Western brands fled, with 90 factories shuttering and 85,000 workers laid off in the past year alone. Foreign direct investment cratered by 32%, while youth unemployment hit 18.4%, a time bomb in a median-age-25 population. The riel (currency) is in freefall, inflation hit 4.5% despite stagnant wages, and 1.2 million Cambodians now survive on under $1.90/day as rice exports dwindle under elite land grabs…
…This war is not about a temple. It has also been misinterpreted as a scrap between Hun Sen and The Shinawatras, some kind of 4D chess game between the US and China or simple nationalist grandstanding. It is none of those. This war is the outcome of a decades-long project of anti-communism on both sides of the border, a war against the poor, fought by the poor as commanded by the elite. Both the US and China have called for peace– along with almost every other state in the region. Those who attempt to paint it as Chinese meddling in Southeast Asia obviously try to do so in bad faith, both parties have accepted some Belt and Road funding, bought some weapons, etc. While those inclined to see this as some kind of US instigated conflict completely fail to see the woods through the trees.
Yes, ultimately it was the US pax-Americana project that birthed these repressive state apparatuses decades ago, but today little direct interference remains beyond the “free” markets they left behind, along with their unexploded ordinance and incalculable trauma. To point the finger at the US is to flatter them, particularly the current administration. This war is between two of the aforementioned reactionary state apparatuses they also happened to leave behind…
…In Bangkok there is a rogue military holding a civilian government hostage, in Phnom Penh there is a state gutted by the fever dreams of the Chicago School, both perpetrating a completely unjust and unnecessary conflict. The only losers in this war, however it ends, will be the poor of Thailand and Cambodia. This is what The Eastern Tigers and organisations like UNTAC were made for. Class war against the poor.
Peace between nations is the only class-based solution.
