Imagine a terrifying world where we are all ruled by monsters of every stripe. And not hot ones like werewolves, but instead decaying zombies and mummies who are both insensitive to, and actively benefit from the immense suffering they cause on a daily basis. The top echelon of society, filled with profit-seeking, bloodsucking vampires. And the worst of it is that they repeat on a daily basis that what they are doing is not only just, but there is no other possible way to do it.
Pretty spooky, right? What if I told you that this world... was our own?
Happy Halloween!
Friendly reminder: when commenting about a news event, especially something that just happened, please provide a source of some kind. While ideally this would be on nitter or archived, any source is preferable to none at all given.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
The Country of the Week is Lebanon! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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/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/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.
BRASILIA, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Brazil's ruling Workers Party criticized the Israeli government on Friday for not allowing 34 Brazilians to leave Gaza, saying Israel is playing favorites when deciding who should be allowed to evacuate the besieged Palestinian territory.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told his Brazilian counterpart Brazil's nationals would leave Gaza by Wednesday, a Brazilian foreign ministry spokesman said late on Friday.
In three days since the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened to allow nationals of other countries to leave Gaza, Brazilians waiting to leave were not on the list approved by Israel, despite diplomatic efforts to include them.
"For the third time, the Israeli government denied the departure of Brazilian citizens threatened by the massacre against the civilian population in the Gaza strip," Workers Party president Gleisi Hoffmann said in a social media post.
She said the Israeli government has not provided any explanation for what she said was discrimination. Brazil tried to find a negotiated solution to the conflict when it presided over the U.N. Security Council in October, Hoffmann said.
"Unfortunately, the Israeli government signals that it has established a political hierarchy for the release of civilians, favoring some countries over others," Hoffmann said.
"We cannot allow that Brazilian civilians remain threatened in a region under military massacre," she added.
Hundreds of foreign passport holders and gravely injured Palestinians have been evacuated from Gaza via the Rafah crossing to Egypt since Wednesday in a deal brokered by Qatar between Egypt, Israel and Hamas, in coordination with the U.S.
Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which rules Gaza, after the militant group killed 1,400 people and took more than 240 hostages in an Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel. Gaza health officials said on Saturday that more than 9,488 Palestinians have been killed so far in the Israeli assault.
A diplomatic source briefed on Egyptian plans said some 7,500 foreign passport holders would be evacuated over two weeks.
Brazilian officials said they have no explanation for the failure to let their citizens out of Gaza. Some local media have speculated it is due to positions taken by Brazil at the United Nations and comments by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Lula has criticized the "terrorism" of Hamas that started the war, but he has also criticized Israel for its "insane" bombardment of Gaza that has killed hundreds of children.