Image is of a solar park in Cuba, donated last year by China, sourced from this article.
To be honest, I don’t have much to say about ongoing geopolitical events that hasn’t already been said in previous threads (e.g. with India/Pakistan, Trump/Putin, and of course occupied Palestine), so this is more of a “news roundup” preamble for this week.
As we all know, the US (and the imperial core generally) has only three permitted international actions: sanctions, color revolution, and war. None of these have been going well lately, but sanctions are in particularly dire straits right now. Three examples from the last week or so:
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The EU is on its 17th sanctions package, apparently, which is surprising, as I thought they were on their 76th or something. It apparently targets Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers, but I don’t think anybody actually gives a shit because we all know it won’t achieve anything, so, moving on…
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The head of Nvidia (as well as many others) have come out and said that the US chip export controls on China have failed, remarking that China’s internal motivations to develop alternatives are strong and proceeding rapidly, especially as China’s number of skilled scientists is only growing. Nvidia has said that they had a 95% share of China’s AI chip market in 2020 or so, but now they only have 50%.
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Lastly, an interesting one: Iran has received its first set of railway shipment of solar panels from China, and there is hope for accelerating shipments of even more products. Myself and many others have predicted a decoupling of Iran from the West and towards China and Russia (especially if any Western-built product could have Israeli devices implanted into them, such as with the pager terrorist attack on Lebanon’s doctors), and having a strong link with China will be a necessary step for Iran and their allies to continue their offensives against Israel.
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
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.
A lot of criticism of this online. I’ve seen it in English and Arabic. I do have some questions though.
Is this a scandal in Chinese media? Also, Can anyone explain what the heck is happening with the Chinese foreign ministry that allows this to happen like this? They’re not stupid, they must know this is a terrible optic…
Israel has blocked a planned visit by a delegation of foreign ministers headed by Saudi Arabia, including representatives from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and Turkey, who were set to meet with Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank on Sunday.
- Telegram
"Forum of Supporters of the Struggle against Modern Practices of Neocolonialism - "For the Freedom of Nations! also known as FFN is a Russian-led inter-party movement uniting various political parties of the states of the Second and Third World with the stated aim of countering modern manifestations of colonialism.
The movement was officially created in February 2024 on the initiative of the United Russia Party after the founding General Assembly of the “Forum of Supporters of the Fight against Modern Practices of Neocolonialism” was held in Moscow. Since then, political parties from more than 50 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe and the CIS have joined the movement.
Chairman: Dmitry Medvedev
Countering modern neocolonial practices is understood by supporters as the main goal of the “For the Freedom of Nations!” Movement. These practices include the imposition of sanctions and restrictive measures, weaponization of currencies, cultural indoctrination, falsification of history, information and psychological campaigns, etc. The Movement positions itself as a Forum for consolidation of the political movements from countries of the Global South.
Some of it’s members are: Algeria’s FNL, Azerbaijan’s New Azerbaijan Party, Belarus’ Belaya Rus, Brazil’s Workers’ Party (PT), Venezuela’s PSUV, South Africa’s ANC, China’s CPC, Laos’ Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, Indonesia’s GOLKAR, Serbia’s Serbian Peoples’ Party, Myanmar’s Union Solidarity and Development Party and many others.
So is this part of BRICS or just some Russian exclusive friendly political parties club?
Russian forces liberated 13 more settlements this week (four in Sumy oblast, two in Kharkov oblast, and seven in the Donetsk People’s Republic): https://tass.com/politics/1966097
Plus, another collection of recent Russian FPV drone strikes on Kiev regime firing positions and military equipment: https://s5.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/fpv-1.mp4
Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi: ‘The US-mediated peace treaty between Egypt and Israel is a model that the entire region should follow, to guarantee enduring stability and ending the cycle of vengeance and violence, and every nation should persue a just peace [with Israel]’
- Telegram
An update on the F-15E Strike Eagles conducting Combat Air Patrols (CAP) and Defensive Counter Air (DCA) at Diego Garcia and also in the Middle East and West Asia in general, called the CENTCOM area of responsibility by the United States.
A few days ago, the US Air Force trialed a new anti drone and cruise missile loadout on one of their testbed F-15Es, equipping it with 42 APKWS laser guided rockets. The APKWS laser guided rockets offer a cheap and high magazine capacity firing solution to drone and cruise missile swarms (they cost 20K USD each and work by equipping a guidance kit to unguided Hydra rockets, kind of like equipping a JDAM kit to an unguided bomb), as seen by equipping 42 of them on one aircraft, with three seven shot pods on each wing. I did a more detailed post on APKWS here. What’s interesting is that the positioning of the rocket pots still leaves eight hardpoints open (that can be used by missiles or bombs), four on the conformal fuel tanks and four next to the rocket pods.
Now this similar loadout appeared on an F-15E at Muwaffaq Salti Airbase in Jordan, in active service. In addition to the 42 APKWS laser guided rockets, 4 AIM-9 Sidewinder infrared guided air to air missiles are mounted on hardpoints next to the rocket pods, and 4 AIM-120 radar guided air to air missiles are mounted on the hardpoints on the conformal fuel tanks. This allows for a potential of 50 engagements per aircraft.
With this capability going from testing to active use in a matter of days, with it being publicly posted on social media platforms, it suggests that the US is signalling towards Iran, that they’re making preparations to defend from a large scale drone attack from Iran should that occur in response to an Israeli/US attack on Iran, or as a pre-emptive strike.
I smell regime change brewing in Nepal. Look at that. The based juche party should just take over, the left wing party in nepal got voted out and the sucdems have been trying to undo a lot of the left’s work.
brave hamas decided to cast their lot with certainty, hope trump fucking nukes tel-aviv in some complicated insurance scheme. linky to tweet, fuck bbc
Czechia
“Communism is just like Nazism. The House of Representatives approved a proposal to ban the promotion of communism”
Absolutely awful Google Translate text below
The Chamber of Deputies has approved a design to outlaw communist the movement, just like Nazism, as part of an antose to the article Criminal Code. MPs still have to approve the law as a whole.
In the reform of the Criminal Code, the Chamber of Deputies the act of propulsion and movement at suppressing rights and freedoms. It is now to mention the Nazi and communist movements. This outlawing of communism was supported by government and Pirate MPs. Babiš’s YES the movement was against it, with one exception.
The changes to criminal law adopted by the Chamber of Deputies should contribute to reducing the number of, reducing prisoners recidivism and saving the state budget. The government’s to amendment the Criminal Code code give priority to appetite additives, including fines, and decriminally classified some some acts.
Among other things, the lower house house relaxed the rules for cultivation and osing cannabis, adjusted the rates for some cannabis offenses, and psi manlocybin treatment. It added and so-child certificate to the draft.
The the abolition of the criminal proceedings of unauthorized activity for a foreign power. The act is being investigated by the Constitutional Court at the initiative of a group of senators. The controversial ban on publishing the identities of suspects and prosecuted people will not be included in the code. The draft is to be effective from January and will now be a submitted to the Senate for consideration.
The current provision in the Criminal Procedure Code, as under what criminal authorities can not publish information in the preparatory proceedings that’s the identification of the allowed of the person against whoch criminal conducted are conducted, the injured party, the party and the witnesses, will in place even the criminal law reform. Vondráček’s was an amendment to the nerde that such information can not be published by anyone, including the media.
The amendment to the government’s criminal law reform was supported by the legal committee in early April with the votes of all members present except Jakub Michálek (Pirates). By mid-May, no members of the committee had in favor of the amendment.
The Piratess has been described by the possible tightening as a new muzzle law. Vondráček did not agree with the interpretation an. Acting to Him, the tightening would not pay to the names of politicians and other known people and would be intrinsify personal rights of people. The provisioning in what information can be published for public interest, if it outweighs the right to privacy, should continue to apply. The Pirates argued against this, saying that it was a try torched from the unifies public who figures in corruption cases.
Ok, trade war’s back on, and there will apparently be much civil unrest in China.
This guy is such a classic end-of-empire leader.
mr. china, seems like you’ll have to make your engine faster reuters
The resistance detonates an explosive on a force of what I believe are collaborators, although the text calls them “undercover,” I’m not sure if they’re actually Israeli due to the Yasser Abu Shabab reference
Cw gore in the last 15 seconds, a guy gets his head blown off
“ Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades:
Scenes of targeting a number of musta’ribeen (undercover) of the occupation army east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
translation and context
Notes: 0:10 -
- The occupation army used a number of musta’ribeen in house clearing operations and in the search for tunnels and resistance fighters during the incursion into various areas of the Gaza Strip.
- The musta’ribeen worked alongside enemy soldiers on the ground in joint missions.
- The enemy assigned them several other tasks, including planting explosives and booby-trapping homes.
- The musta’ribeen move around in armored vehicles in the areas of incursion.
0:25 - The musta’ribeen monitor the area by orders of enemy forces. 0:32 - The musta’ribeen begin clearing the area under the protection of enemy aircraft. 01:46 - Detonating an explosive on the force of musta’ribeen during their clearing of a home before the entry of the IOF into the area.”
https://t.me/PalestineResist/77771
A security source in the resistance to Al-Jazeera:
“It became clear that the musta’ribeen force (undercover “israeli” unit) east of Rafah are agents for the occupation, tasked with sweeping, monitoring resistance fighters, and looting aid.
The elements of the musta’ribeen force belong to the gang of the so-called Yasser Abu Shabab and are working with the occupation army inside Rafah.
We will deal with agents and others firmly, and we will consider them part of the occupation, no matter how much they hide under its protection.”
:sicko-jensen:
The company describes the G100 as China’s first domestically designed 6 nm GPU, marking a significant milestone in its effort to challenge established industry players. With the first silicon now operational, Lisuan is moving into driver development, software validation, and broader system integration testing. Although Lisuan has provided few formal specifications, rumors indicate that SMIC is fabbing the G100 die, currently the only Chinese foundry capable of producing a 6 nm node under US export restrictions.
“orange man tweeted something about China”
Throwback to this article which was very insightful when it was published a few months back.
The MAGA Effect on US-China Relations: Strategic Ambiguity on Steroids
Six months before Trump was elected president, Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that led Project 2025 – a sort of road map for Trump 2.0 – had actually recommended a policy of deliberate ambiguity toward China to determine the tempo, tenor, and contours of Sino-U.S. competition in the coming years.
A bipartisan think tank, Brookings, echoed that recommendation as Trump was forming his cabinet.
Regardless of whether the ambiguity is strategic or not, the very unpredictability of Trump’s approach – a barrage of explosive and often contradictory public statements, a rapid shift from threats and provocations to warm personal diplomacy – makes it exceedingly hard to forecast what he might ultimately do.
Some researchers have suggested that Trump’s seemingly irrational and volatile behaviour makes him an ideal conveyor of a U.S. policy based on the strategic ambiguity that gained much currency during the Nixon’s administration and was described as the Madman Theory. It dates back to at least 1517 when Niccolò Machiavelli wrote in The Prince that sometimes it is “a very wise thing to simulate madness.” The inklings of an idea that appeared in the work of Machiavelli eventually inspired a coterie of Harvard University scholars that included Henry Kissinger to ponder the limitations of rationality in grand strategy during the late 1950s and early 1960s – a rational U.S. president would seek to avoid a nuclear confrontation at all costs, but a “convincingly mad” one could credibly threaten large risks and therefore make the adversary blink first.
What is certain is that the U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity vis-à-vis China predates Trump’s presidency. In the last ten years, Washington’s attitude to China shifted dramatically. From viewing it as a partner in global governance to describing it as a strategic competitor, to labelling it a systemic rival that poses direct challenges to U.S. interests.
And now for some comic relief:
Fraudster made £550,000 selling fake ‘Scottish-grown tea’
Prosecutors said he created the “CV of a fantasist” - claiming among other things that he was a multi-millionaire, a polymer scientist, a former bomb disposal expert and had invented the “bag for life”.
He also claimed to have developed a “special biodegradable polymer” that would make the tea plants grow in half the usual time. The court was told it looked like a black bin liner.
