Image is of rescue efforts at a damaged residential complex in Caracas on June 25th.
Weekly preamble in spoiler tags below.
preamble
The situation regarding both Iran and global oil markets is getting even more complicated, and that’s without even including the regular injections of disinformation from people like Barak Ravid and Trump himself. In my current estimation, the negotiations are proceeding as if both sides would rather see a deal than not. At the very least, there have certainly been enough blatant violations of the MoU articles that Iran would be fully justified to end negotiations altogether, and yet they are not, which must mean that they really do want a deal. Until a few days ago, these were mainly issues that Iran has been prepared to show… “flexibility” on (others might say “cowardice”), such as Zionist aggression against southern Lebanon. Both at the start of the April ceasefire and at the start of the MoU, they made Lebanon out to be a red line issue, but ultimately seemed convinced by the US saying to them, via backchannels, that they’ll yank the leash back on their mangy, rabid dog. Therefore, it’s safe to conclude that Iran, in practice, either only symbolically cares about Lebanon as the number of buildings destroyed by the Zionists is now climbing into the tens of thousands, or is confident in Hezbollah’s ability to withstand assaults and eventually push back the Zionists to the border.
However, very recently, the fighting has once again come closer to home for Iran, with renewed, albeit limited, exchanges of fire in the general area of Hormuz. This all stems from an unfortunate contradiction that Iran has wandered into with regard to Oman. In short: their legal argument for why they should be able to extract tolls/service fees from shipping through Hormuz relies on the concept of Hormuz being part of their territorial waters and not international waters, which is literally true. However, it is also possible to transit Hormuz entirely through Oman’s territorial waters too, and, critically, Oman has not shown any serious interest in charging a toll, and is letting shipping pass freely. Oman is also much less able to seriously withstand foreign assaults than Iran, meaning their position is precarious - side with Iran, and risk a Western military assault that destroys them; side with the US, and risk Hormuz never truly reopening because the IRGC will not tolerate ships bypassing their authority. So, Iran is now legally stuck: to have a toll, it must find a way to argue that territorial waters are important when it applies to them, but aren’t important when it applies to Oman. Or, of course, to somehow convince Oman to set up their own toll, in face of the dangers.
So far, the result of this has been Iran asserting, both verbally and through drones and missiles, that transit through the Oman channels is, at least during the period of the MoU, illegitimate. This has squashed hopes by many analysts that Hormuz flows would return to normal very soon - after a very brief peak, these numbers now seem to be descending to near-wartime levels. This is happening as the US’s reserves continue to drain at a frightening rate. That being said, Iranian oil tankers are getting out in large numbers and reaching foreign markets, so it’s not as if Iran is solely being disadvantaged by the current situation. It’s even possible that Iran is waiting for enough of these ships to reach Eastern Asia before they plan to restart the war. I’m unsure if this is actually likely, but I’ve seen several others suggest it, and it does make sense to at least make the most of the current lack of blockade while you figure out if the US is actually going to give in to any of your demands.
Over in Ukraine, the situation seems to be slowly heating up. It’s always hard for me personally to figure out the seriousness of the statements of the Ukrainians and the Russians - you’ll look back on a year of exaggerated threats and bold statements and promises of grand offensives and threats of nuclear war and yet, on the battlefield, all you see is fairly standard attrition and positional warfare. Anyway: there’s been much ado about Ukrainian attacks into Russia proper over the last few months and whether it’s having an impact on their economy (not particularly), wartime production (not at all), and social fabric (kinda). However, the rumors of Belarus getting more directly involved in the war - whether they want to or not - are increasing in intensity, with Ukraine threatening that they’ll fire on Belarusian border military equipment if it isn’t withdrawn. Also, the Russian hardliners seem to really want to start attacking European military production supplying Ukraine, though Putin appears to have squashed those desires. But at the end of the day, the attrition and territorial advancements continue to convincingly favor Russia.
And lastly, the numbers of the aftermath of the recent earthquakes in Venezuela are rolling in, with ~1500 dead, ~750 buildings damaged and collapsed, and many thousands of people affected and being assisted by the government. From the footage I’ve seen, it’s quite disturbing, and obviously not coming at a great time for Venezuela geopolitically either.
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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 the Zionists’ 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.
‘Spiritual Rearmament’: Denmark’s Parliament to Get In-House Priest
The Danish regime announced this week that a state-appointed priest will be permanently stationed inside the national parliament beginning this autumn, tasked with conducting weekly religious services for the country’s ruling elite.
One imagines the nation’s MPs have been wandering in a spiritual desert, their souls parched and trembling, cruelly underserved by the working parish church already located inside the Christiansborg parliamentary compound, or by the 28 other places of worship within walking distance of the seat of government, all presumably staffed by clergy with nothing better to do than to soothe the guilty consciences of legislators.
Read more...
This pastoral innovation is the brainchild of Ida Auken, the newly appointed head of the Nordic hermit kingdom’s Social Democrat-controlled Ministry of Health and Ecclesiastical Affairs. For the past couple of years, Auken has organised weekly prayer meetings for state-Lutheran MPs. A theologian herself, she first got the idea back when she served as the Social Democrats’ “democracy spokesperson with a particular focus on spiritual rearmament” (not a real job) in 2025. She claims an on-site priest will help reduce stress among MPs.
The idea is a remnant of Danish leader Mette Frederiksen’s broader push last year for a “spiritual rearmament,” a propaganda campaign designed to lend moral and cultural justification to her regime’s aggressive military rearmament. The thinking, such as it was, held that if the public could be nudged toward a vague sense of national-Christian purpose, they might prove more willing to die heroically for the fatherland in the coming struggle against the Russian menace and Putin’s Asiatic hordes, or, failing that, at least accept austerity and declining public services to pay for the latest generation of expensive war toys.
Frederiksen claimed the nation was in the most serious situation of her lifetime and urged the Lutheran state church to step up as “a spiritual and physical framework for what Danes are going through,” confidently predicting that “people will increasingly seek the Church, because it offers natural fellowship and national grounding.”
The people did not seek the church.
The spiritual rearmament fizzled out with all the cultural impact of a wet fart, failing to inspire the intended national-Christian awakening among a public who found the fervour weird and who simply couldn’t be arsed. The domestic intellectuals and artists who had initially welcomed the initiative, naively hoping that “rearmament” meant actual money for libraries, museums, and the arts, quickly jumped ship when they realised that, unlike military rearmament with its bottomless budgets and defence-contractor blowjobs, spiritual rearmament was all flag-shagging and no funding
Frederiksen’s crusader rhetoric also sat awkwardly with the actual character of Denmark’s Lutheran state church. This is not the Church Militant. It is, by design, a very low-intensity affair, where strong religious emotion is considered awkward and making any demands upon adherents is regarded as outright rude. It is a church for people who do not particularly wish to go to church, religion for non-believers, a theological outsourcing service where a priest believes in God so the average Dane doesn’t have to.
But these MPs are not seeking God. They are seeking cheap political points by performing reactionary nationalist piety. For many of them, Christianity simply means putting up a big sign saying “No Muslims allowed!”
For years these same politicians have waxed hysterical about the supposed Islamic threat emanating from non-denominational prayer rooms in schools, chattering darkly about nebulously defined “social control” and extremism. But apparently, practising religion in rooms is only a problem when brown people do it, and now the politicians have voted themselves their very own prayer room, complete with a house cleric to hold their hands.
Official press releases make great effort to create the impression that the parliamentary priest comes at no expense to the public, boasting that parliament will not have to pay a single penny for their spiritual life coach. Well, technically Parliament isn’t paying the salary, the state church is. Which is funded by lavish state subsidies and a special tax on members. But at least it is a different spreadsheet.
The absurdity of the religious push from the elite is only heightened by the actual religious landscape of the country. Although roughly seventy percent of the population belong to the Lutheran state church, churches are mostly empty, with only about two percent bothering to attend regular services. A mere eighteen percent of the population finds religion to be an important part of their daily life. According to a 2017 Gallup poll, 61 percent of Danes define themselves as either “not a religious person” or outright atheist. The Danes, in other words, have long since made their peace with secularism. It is only their politicians who still feel the need to pretend.
There is no inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for those who steal from the poor to fund weapons. Fuck this Christ washing shit.