At the start of last week concluded the Summit of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES in French), in which, among other significant news, was the announcement of the creation of a unified military force for the alliance - called, rather straightforwardly, the Unified Force - which currently consists of about 5000 soldiers. Strictly speaking, joint military operations between the three countries had already been taking place for over a year before this point, but I imagine this organization streamlines the internal processes and makes it truly official.
Mali’s Goïta delivered a speech during the summit in which he stated there were three main threats to the alliance: military, economic, and media. While this new military force is a major effort to combat military threats, the three countries have also mutually launched television, radio, and print media organizations to combat disinformation and psychological warfare. The economic aspect is the most tricky aspect of all, as (albeit decaying) American hegemony is not friendly to states which seek an independent economic path, most especially if that path does not directly benefit Western international corporations. Nonetheless, the three countries are doing what they can; they mutually launched an AES passport earlier in 2025, and this month, Mali has taken a bold move, recovering $1.2 billion after renegotiating mining deals with mining corporations after a comprehensive audit. Gold mining in Mali is a major sector of the economy, comprising about 20% of annual government revenue.
The three countries have also withdrawn from ECOWAS. The remaining countries consist of a small collection of West African countries, most significantly among them Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. ECOWAS is increasingly seen by the AES leadership - quite rightfully - as an organization which seeks to contain the radical shift in West Africa and return the region to the neocolonial French-governed status quo. As I talked about in a semi-recent news megathread, Nigeria is experiencing its own suite of internal problems, so perhaps in the coming years, ECOWAS will crumble from within and the AES can push back the terrorist organizations threatening them.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
what makes you so sure about that? Even if it isn’t by force, I think it is naive to believe that a world superpower having designated taiwan as a core interest, and developing the means over the past few years to do it, would not end up pursuing it at all. Also, even within the DPP there have been a large number of officials who were guilty of “espionage,” revealing “state” secrets to the PRC for monetary compensation. So the separatist factions within Taiwan themselves are not really reliable, or rather, they likely have limited resolve. On top of this the Trump regime is pretty transactional, and it seems like the US ruling class is willing to put a lot on the table for any sort of grand bargain that they believe will enable a new beneficial status quo- recent RAND reports are already putting forward position papers on living with china as a peer adversary by focusing on the western hemisphere and europe as a a sphere of influence that will enable the US to survive along side a strong china
The status quo is just soft reunification. The CPC is content with turning Taiwan into a de facto SEZ without firing a single shot. I also suspect that the CPC doesn’t want to incorporate millions of “I’m not Chinese, I’m Taiwanese” Chinese people into China proper lest they spread separatist ideas to other Chinese provinces. The PRC wants to hold onto Taiwan but from a distance.
And as you said, the DPP’s hold on the island isn’t that strong. There have been numerous protests against Lai already. The ROC military is also pathetic (just watch footage put out by the ministry of defense), and the institution is still a KMT institution anyways. Taiwan is also completely reliant on imported fuel for its energy needs, so the PRC doesn’t even need to launch an amphibious assault but could just blockade the island.
At this point, I think it’s mostly kayfabe. In any capitalist society, if you control the capitalists, you control the society. If nothing else, Taiwanese capitalists are too busy making money from the Mainland to rock the boat too hard and most Taiwanese people know that they’re absolutely fucked if the PLA invades Taiwan.
Fun fact I learned a while ago: many Taiwan residents hold ID cards for the PRC too, as the Beijing govt considers islanders as de facto PRC citizens they can get ID cards as anyone else can.
Of course, the Taipei regime is more than happy to deny your civil rights if you dare register with the mainland (for whom thousands have relatives who were separated by the civil war).
The PRC is already the reality for much of the island.
Yes, I agree with you. I think the real danger is honestly the neo-con faction of the US and its constituent media apparatus (basically all US/EU corporate media) leading to a more emboldened separatist faction and a US public more disconnected from reality than ever.
The rhetoric in US media is so remarkable in its consistency, the paragraphs in nearly every article that describe the situation and the US’s own foreign policy are always nearly identical language, but are so tortured in their description that it is laughable.
US foreign policy is literally that it recognizes there is only one china, and it also officially recognizes the PRC as china. That is the official stance of the US government. Yet every article in the west uses the same verbiage to make it seem like that isn’t the case, as much as it possibly can without saying it directly. Over and over I have had the same experience when talking to people in person, in the US, about the US’s own official stance… they are either completely shocked or they outright don’t believe you.
Its the same BS that had people polling so favorably to invade iraq. The US media spent the better part of a decade talking about iraq’s fictional biological weapons programs and how evil and out of control saddam hussein was. I remember hearing about it vividly and repeatedly- basically from the first gulf war all the way to the invasion of iraq. That is what frightens me more than anything. Many US neocons would love to make Taiwan into another Ukraine. They will fight to the last person on Taiwan if they have to.