Bulletins and News Discussion from March 4th to March 10th, 2024 - The Coalition of Losers - COTW: Pakistan
Bulletins and News Discussion from March 4th to March 10th, 2024 - The Coalition of Losers - COTW: Pakistan
Image is of a protest in Pakistan after the attempted assassination of Imran Khan in November 2022.
What a clusterfuck of an election.
Imran Khan, the previous official Prime Minister of Pakistan, was removed by the command of the United States in April 2022 in a no confidence motion. This made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Imran Khan and his supporters have protested since then against the Pakistani state, which is more-or-less governed by the military despite the furnishings of civilian rule. This has ranged from largely peaceful protests to trying to burn down and occupy houses and headquarters.
It was assumed by the Pakistani elite that they could make the problem go away by arresting Imran Khan and effectively forcing many PTI candidates to run as independents while hounding them with police raids and stopping them from campaigning - and adding salt on the wound by disabling social media access and mobile services on the day of the election to make it more difficult to co-ordinate. Fortunately, these people don't seem to quite understand how the internet works in the current day, and so Khan's supporters started up WhatsApp groups and improvised websites and apps to spread the word about which candidates to vote for, leading to Khan's party getting the plurality, though not the majority, of votes in the election.
This has created a rather depressed mood in the Pakistani elite. A coalition of eight parties joined together, obviously excluding the PTI, but this coalition is shaky and lacks much legitimacy, with two major parties inside it, the PML-N and PPP, being ideologically opposed on several issues. It has been regarded as "the coalition of losers" by Khan's supporters. The new Prime Minister is Shehbaz Sharif, who also ruled from April 2022 until August 2023 and is the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif, who served as Prime Minister three times before in the last few decades. With inflation at 30% and the economy greatly struggling, there are fears that things may only stay together for months, not years, before the coalition fragments and something else has to be done.
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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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Putin confirmed that Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles had been used for the first time in Ukraine (RIA)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, said that the Zircon complex had already been used in combat.
“Obviously, we are talking about the use of the latest hypersonic missiles for attacks on military targets of Ukraine. Surely these missiles were used within the framework of the air defense as part of the so-called combined strikes, which involve the use of various types of weapons in one strike with synchronization in time and place. That is this is a combination, for example, of Zircons, Calibers, Geran UAVs, and Kh-101 long-range air-launched cruise missiles,” Murakhovsky said. In his opinion, no more than two or three Zircons were used in one strike, because this stage of use is a test of the weapon system in real combat conditions.
“Most likely, combined strikes with the participation of Zircons were carried out against Ukrainian targets in areas most densely covered by layered air defense, including with the participation of Western Patriot-type systems, in order to confirm the capabilities of hypersonic missiles to overcome air defense. I think that in this regard there were targets have been selected for destruction in the Odessa or Kiev region,” Murakhovsky noted.
The specialist added that, judging by the lack of “media activity” on this matter from the enemy, the missiles were not shot down. He recalled that the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles had previously confirmed their effectiveness in overcoming the layered air defense of Ukraine, which includes Western-style air defense systems.
The Zircon missile was developed and produced at the Reutov NPO Mashinostroyenia (part of the Tactical Missiles Corporation). The missile has a range of 1000 kilometers and can reach a speed of Mach 9.
Better start believing in it. Scramjet hypersonic cruise missiles are real.
This is big news. The Zircon hypersonic missile is a true hypersonic cruise vehicle with wings, a lift generating body, hypersonic maneuvering and plasma stealth. The Kinzhal missile in comparison is just a retrofitted ballistic missile which lacks these features.
Guess Putin has decided to get serious, maybe he's planning on handing
some heavy losses just in time to have a major impact on the 2024 election here in 
I think it's more a signal to the USA. These missiles make aircraft carriers floating coffins. Can't be detected by radar, hypersonic maneuverability, much more deadly than the Kinzhals. The US tests of these types of weapons have failed, the US has no equivalent to a Zircon.
Considering Victoria Nuland is resigning I think it could mean Russia is letting the west know it’s Joever bro
the zircon news came out 5 days ago, I don't think it's like that
It’s way joever and it’s crazy you don’t see it
There is also little to nothing current air defence systems can do about them. Which gives Russia a first strike advantage in a nuclear war.
plasma stealth?
The bitch moves so fast it creates a plasma shield around it from super heated air that radar cannot penetrate. I’m sure someone else can explain better but that’s kinda the gist.