Image of destruction in Mandalay, Myanmar, from Al Jazeera.


As if the ongoing civil war wasn’t enough, Myanmar has now been struck by a very powerful earthquake, resulting in 2000 deaths and thousands more injured as of the time of writing. Estimates are that the death toll could reach 10,000. Infrastructure like roads and bridges are damaged, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. The earthquake struck during Eid prayers, resulting in even higher casualties as several mosques collapsed. 20 million people already required humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, and now the situation there will be even worse. International rescue teams have rushed into the country, and aid is being raised, though with USAID experiencing the… changes that it is, the United States will be of even more limited help than usual. So far, China has sent $14 million, while USAID has supplied $2 million. In Thailand, the death toll seems considerably lower, though there has still been significant damage; a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.

Myanmar is located very close to the boundary between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In particular, the country is divided in two by the north-south oriented Sagaing fault. This fault is typically strike-slip; that is, each side of the fault moves horizontally past each other. The earthquake’s depth was 10 kilometers, which is pretty shallow, and its proximity to the surface amplified the felt force of the earthquake. Additionally, the soft soil in this region tends to further amplify seismic waves through a process called liquefaction. Combine all this with the lackluster building codes due to many years of impoverishment and civil wars, and this explains why the death toll, and the expense to the country in general to repair damage, will probably be extremely high.


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

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.


  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    Myanmar’s military junta updates the death toll from the country’s biggest earthquake in decades. There are 2,056 dead, 3,900 injured, more than 270 missing and hundreds homeless. The World Health Organization says that the country’s health system has collapsed and rescue teams are struggling to operate in the devastated country, with no roads, bridges or communications.

    Elderly people, monks, babies and hundreds of other patients are being treated in parking lots, under makeshift tents. The capital’s main hospital has only 1,000 beds for use.

    • Telegram
  • Beetle [hy/hym]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    CW: SA and transphobia

    A 17 year old trans girl named Alice Serova from Russia who sought asylum in The Netherlands was killed by neglect after she was sexually assaulted at an asylum center. The assault happened in October 2023 and she received no support or help afterwards. On this March 27 she died of an overdose at a shelter for adults. People who lived at the shelter had warned about her being in danger but the agents that checked up on her refused to call an ambulance even though she was barely breathing.

    This horrific event calls attention to the dangerous situations asylum seekers in The Netherlands are put in due to neglect and underfunding from the government.

    https://lgbtasylumsupport.nl/diep-geschokt-hoe-is-het-mogelijk-dat-een-17-jarige-transgender-asielzoekster-gevlucht-als-16-jarige-uit-rusland-met-een-zeer-complexe-zorgvraag-in-de-eerste-maand-in-nederland-verkracht-werd-in-a/

  • grandepequeno [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    First french poll after le pen got pwned, assuming the RN goes with the bardella guy who underperformed in the EU elections. These aren’t all that different from le pen’s numbers, honestly starting to seem like the arrest was either a nothing burger or a “this will bite you in the ass”-burger. The RN will probably still end up in first place in a presidential election and go to the second round facing either an extreme centrist or melenchon, which will require either of those 2 groups of voters to vote for the other against the far right, and then fail to obtain a majority in a legislative election and have to rely on referendums.

  • carpoftruth [any, any]@hexbear.netM
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    1 month ago

    pretty in depth NYT article about the extent to which that americans/NATO are embedded in the ukrainian military

    the extent of support for the ukrainian military is not news to this community, but it is interesting to see the knives out between different parties in headline NYT reporting. despite the admission of close military collaboration, there’s clearly a tone of discord between ukraine and the US and the US and the major euro countries.

    • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      Everybody laughed in 2022 when Russia talked about the imperialist bloc will Infight, that NATO will shatter from contradiction, Poland will make landgrabs, etc.

      We are nearing further to that everyday. The coalition of the west is certainly under much more strain than anybody in the west predicted

  • LargePenis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    I met my wife’s zoomer cousins today for Eid and they’re all watching YouTube streams of iShowSpeed touring China. I looked up some of the highlights of those streams and I genuinely believe that shit is more effective for the improvement of China’s image amongst zoomer youth than a thousand articles by academic leftists titled “China’s prosperity boom” or whatever. Zoomers are watching and being impressed by how clean the cities are, the fact that the stream doesn’t lag in a high speed train in a tunnel, by how well-mannered Chinese youth are, and even trivial stuff like knowing about the Great Wall of China for the first time. 🇹🇼🇺🇦-bio creatures are seething in twitter replies about the evil SeeSeePee paying Speed to do these streams, while he’s chilling in the Chinese mountains learning Shaolin kung fu by a nice Chinese dude named Master Liang. The world has truly changed, no amount of leaflets and protests has even a fraction of the effect of one stream of this Speed guy eating spicy noodles while doing backflips in the Forbidden City next to Mao’s mausoleum.

      • coolusername [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        I’m Taiwanese-American and live in Taiwan. The CPC subsidizes tours of China at least for Taiwanese people. They kind of make it sort of like an academic exchange vibe.

      • LargePenis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        iShowSpeed is absolutely massive, I had no idea he was so big honestly. Over 30m Instagram followers, constant 150k+ viewers on his live streams, 37.5m YouTube subscribers, hell they even made him the fucking mayor of Lima in Peru for an hour when he was there. Outside of like Messi, Ronaldo and a handful other top athletes, he has to be one of the most popular people in the world right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least half of zoomers all over the world know who he is. I was looking at his Instagram today and I noticed that my zoomer cousins in Lebanon follow him and they don’t even know any English lol. I don’t think that the Chinese can get a bigger influencer than him right now, but who knows maybe communist tech can bring back Jesus Christ himself in 10 years and make him ride high speed rail and heal Chinese grandmas in Chongqing.

      • LargePenis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        Well yeah, this shit is so goofy and happens every single year. So basically Muslims throughout history have been following the moon for our lunar calendar by doing moon sighting every month. They see a fresh crescent = new month starts tomorrow, they don’t see a fresh crescent = month starts one extra day later. Well humans figured out a few hundred years ago that one can do mathematical calculations to estimate the state of that crescent. Islamic scholars then disagreed if mathematical calculations and even sightings using telescopes count as valid evidence for the new crescent. Saudis a few years ago decided to fully switch to calculations, but to not upset the more conservative parts of the Islamic world, they just make up random eyesight evidence every single time. It was scientifically impossible for any person in the Arabian peninsula to actually see the crescent on Saturday, but that didn’t stop the Saudis and a few other countries from announcing the end of Ramadan and the start of Eid on Sunday anyway. Most Islamic countries including Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Iran didn’t celebrate Eid on Sunday and waited until today. My wife’s family celebrated today too, so our real gathering had to wait until today lol.

        • TheDeed [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 month ago

          Ahaha we also have the same problem in Judaism, the custom in earlier times, the new moon would be spotted in the Jerusalem so a dude would have to go send a message to the other cities and the them the new moon was up. So outside Jerusalem these days, some people observe holidays for two days to be on the safe side. In the more liberal traditions outside Jerusalem we just celebrate one day, which the more hardline denominations do not agree

    • Torenico [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      Funny they’re showcasing a PzH2000… it had a TERRIBLE combat record in Ukraine. Germany planned to sell like 100 of these pieces of shit to Ukraine, a bunch arrived and began combat trials. But soon after entering combat they had to be shipped back to Germany to replace their cannons as they suffered immense wear due to constant use – the thing is that the germans never planned to have this vehicle fire dozens upon dozens of times each day in high intensity conflicts, far from it actually, so the cannons wore down. It couldn’t even compete with soviet/russian made field artillery or SPGs… it’s useless.

        • YellowJackets2TheParish [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 month ago

          The “problem” (I hesitate to use the word because open warfare fucking sucks) is that the West has been thoroughly brain poisoned by not having seen an actual open, peer level conflict in 3/4 of a century. Since WW2 the West has only ever conceived of war in terms of abstracts or fighting against barely equipped targets.

          Five rounds a day for artillery makes perfect sense when your artillerymen are spending 80% of the war bored and jacking off, maybe called up once a day to bombard a small village. The idea of needing to desperately bombard a position for hours to drive a determined and equipped force back is literally beyond the Western mind most of the time.

    • Sam [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      Whilst countries like Poland and the Baltic States cautioned against getting too close to Moscow – and increased their own defence spending – Berlin under former Chancellor Angela Merkel believed in doing business.

      Germany imagined it was delivering democratisation by osmosis. But Russia took the cash and invaded Ukraine anyway.

      Yeah I guess all that cash they ran off with must be why the company that managed Nordstream is going bankrupt and is going to be bought by Americans, who blew the damn thing up in the first place. But I guess those damn Russians just hate peace, remind me who ruined the peace talks trying to prevent the war? oh yeah it was the germans.

    • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      I really don’t think Trump realizes how quickly this could become a feedback loop. He has pissed off literally every other major economy. I wouldn’t be shocked if the US dollar actually gets dropped as the global reserve currency and suddenly deficits and debt start mattering. Like maybe that’s his goal if he’s such an austerity hawk, but I don’t know if he realizes how much damage this will do to the US economy lol.

      • Cimbazarov [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        I think it’s the unpredictability which probably scares countries away more than the tariffs themselves

        I’m also not sure if he genuinely believes that US can build their own domestic industry if countries start trading less with them. There’s no way, but he acts as if that is the plan. trump-enlightened

    • LargePenis [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      Once again it’s confirmed, voting for Trump was a correct choice by our accelerationist brothers and sisters. The world is really one Iranian missile towards Saudi oil facilities from total economic reset lmao