Bulletins and News Discussion from August 19th to August 25th, 2024 - Our Mountains, Our Treasures - Child of the Week: Hassan LargePenis
Image is a snapshot taken from the recent Hezbollah video "Our Mountains, Our Treasures", showcasing their extensive underground fortifications, supply lines, and weaponry.
iran can't keep doing this to me, they've gotta respond soon, right? I'm gonna run out of analysis about countries soon, oh god
The COTW (Child of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific child every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied children. If you've wanted to talk about the child 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 child.
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.
Is this source a credible one regarding West Asia: a simple test.
Search "Hamas" & "Babies". Did this outlet spread the fake news about 40 babies on October 7th? Yes or No? If Yes, it is not credible. If yes, did they retract that news later? If No, then it is a nazi outlet.
Search "Hezbollah" and "airport". Did this outlet spread fake news about Hezbollah storing weapons in Beirut airport? If Yes then it is absolutely not credible.
This is not exhaustive but will weed out the nazi outlets. Some outlets like al Jazeera may pass these tests but should still be treated like enemy outlets regarding topics in Iran and Syria.
The funny thing about Al Jazeera is that they're mostly absolute trash especially when it comes to Iran and Syria, but they look like the reincarnation of Lenin compared to those freaks at Al Arabiya, Al Hadath and Sky News Arabia. I'll always give the Qataris some credit for being way more competent and genuinely closer to the will of the collective Arab nation compared to the Saudis and the Emiratis. They did their best reporting imo during the Qatar crisis a few years ago, when the diplomatic language was fully gone and they blasted Israel, the UAE and Saudi all day and night. That period felt very cathartic for us news nerds honestly.
Watching it is like listening to the villain monologuing, I think they had a video about how Algerian natural resources could be used to save Europe if China doesn't intervene.
Didn't Al Jazeera used to be good in the past? Or at least with regards to a good portion of a Global South. I can imagine they always had those flaws but maybe they're more pronounced now, with their reporting on Ukraine for example.
However, it ought to be noted that the network has a fair number of shortfcomings. Many times, they have reported inaccurately (for example, on the Rwandan opposition), reported some stories rather simplistically (like the DRC, events in West Africa etc.), and sometimes, reproduced Qatar government foreign policy positions (see reporting on Syria and Iraq). Yet these editorial and operational conundrums tend to be true of all networks. Indeed, notwithstanding these shortfalls, AJE has sustained the voices of the subaltern, and offered a counter-narrative destabilising normalised ‘stories’ about the poor — the still exploited peripheries of the capitalist world. Indeed, it is not wild to say that presently, the BBC and CNN and other major networks have started following the example set and the challenge posed by AJE.
The rest of the article covers the positive sides of it in their its history.
https://roape.net/2024/06/14/when-lions-learn-to-paint-reporting-the-subaltern-world/