Bulletins and News Discussion from August 5th to August 11th, 2024 - LGBT - COTW: Iraq
Bulletins and News Discussion from August 5th to August 11th, 2024 - LGBT - COTW: Iraq
Well, Iran and their allies' response may happen sometime this week and apparently they aren't talking to the US in order to negotiate how and where they will hit Israel (and Shoigu arrived in Tehran rather auspiciously), the Bangladeshi government just fell, F16s have been given to Ukraine, there are fascist riots in the UK, and Japan just had its worst stock fall since 1987 and seems to be taking several other countries/corporations with it. I don't really know where to look right now.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Iraq! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
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A good article on the security measures in Venezuela's election. It includes details of the anti-fraud and cryptographic measures, some thoughts on the potential nature of the cyberattacks, and why the CNE and PSUV have delayed publishing their tallies.
I thought that this was in particular interesting in explaining the electoral court's involvement:
Why doesn’t the PSUV publish its tally sheets?
Another frequently asked question is: If María Corina Machado’s team has published 24,000 tally sheets (or 9,000 according to Jorge Rodríguez), why doesn’t the United Socialist Party (PSUV) publish its own tally sheets to back up the results? It is worth noting that the PSUV has done this in the past, for example after the 2013 elections.
A PSUV source, an expert in legal matters who requested not to be named, shared the following information:
They explained that the PSUV had witnesses at all polling stations across the country (about 30,000), and therefore has all the issued tally sheets. In contrast, González’s team had witnesses at only 30 or 35 percent of all polling stations (Vente Venezuela claims to have tally sheets from 80% of the stations, around 24,000, but Jorge Rodríguez said in a press conference last Friday that they only had 9,000 tally sheets).
The PSUV suspects that the opposition might be falsifying the tally sheets, a claim that Rodríguez and Diosdado Cabello have publicly made in recent days.
Thus, according to the confidential answer provided, the PSUV plans to go to the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, submit all the tally sheets, and wait for the opposition to do the same. The TSJ will use the CNE’s authentication mechanisms to determine which set is genuine.
There is concern that if the PSUV publishes its records on a website without first having them certified by the TSJ, the opposition might obtain and use them (especially those they do not have) to create or falsify tally sheets (facsimiles), potentially generating media noise or sowing doubts.
The fact that González did not appear before the Electoral Chamber last Friday raises many questions. If they have the evidence, why not challenge the elections before the appropriate body? Are they willing to have their election evidence verified?
On the other hand, Professor Theoktisto reminded us that, legally speaking, the valid tally sheet is the electronic record transmitted by the voting machine to the tallying center. “By law, the valid tally sheet is the digital package, electronically signed with the various encryption schemes used to protect both the security and authenticity of the data and its transmission.”
The first printed tally sheet, which is placed in an envelope and sent to the CNE, is also important, although it serves as a physical backup to the electronic tally sheet. The copies held by political parties are merely backups and have no legal standing unless there is a challenge to the election.
Interesting. I was wondering this too, but it kind of makes sense. I hope their strategy isn't ruined by the person leaking it, but I get them being annoyed by all the questions by people like me and the international community.